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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977145">Magnetism Of The Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfurus/pseuds/voguelight'>voguelight (sulfurus)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Boyz (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Folklore, Found Footage, Horror, M/M, Missing Persons, POV First Person, Psychological Horror, Small Towns, Unreliable Narrator, youtubers au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:27:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,468</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27977145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfurus/pseuds/voguelight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever I worked on Younghoon’s clips I seemed to lose track of time, as absurd as it was to get that absorbed in something that had to do with video editing. A voice in my head told me that maybe I should be surprised about the passage of time, though. That maybe something was wrong with how quickly it flew. That maybe something was wrong with how desperately I wanted to see something in the clips, in the waves, to see what Younghoon saw.</p><p>or</p><p>Changmin and Sunwoo think that whatever is going on around the town that Eric lives in, it's going to make for a perfect spooky video for their spooky YouTube channel. Unfortunately, as they quickly learn, trying to follow the case of one missing Kim Younghoon might be biting off more than they can chew. But the summer is so warm, Eric is so happy about their visit, and the sea, it's so, so beautiful... What bad could possibly happen to them, when they have each other?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ji Changmin | Q/Kim Sunwoo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Die Jungz Fest (R1)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Tiles filled from the bingo card: true crime, found footage, folklore/mythology</p><p>Sunwoo's age is changed to match Changmin's in this fic for no reason other than convenience. Does this happen in Korea? Does this happen in USA? Does this happen somewhere else entirely? I don't know. You figure it out. For extra spook I suggest putting on some dark ambient sea waves youtube compilation or simply an album by Pharmakon.</p><p>Please read this fic with a kind eye. I literally finished writing it on the day it was due, literally 20 minutes before posting it. Some parts aren't beta read. Those are the bad parts.</p><p>There's a large group of people that I want to thank for helping me with this monster of a fic, without who I wouldn't have gotten these ideas in the first place, I would have given up halfway or I would have just. Died. The people who've listened to me talk about it, hyped me out about it, who have given me their opinions, their very important opinions. But I can't attempt to remain anonymous if I list them all by name. Just know that if you think this is about you then it probably is. I love you. Thank you.<br/>Beta read by <a href="https://twitter.com/connahquay">Connah</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>My grandfather used to say that there are two wolves inside of you, fighting for dominance. One of them is good, full of love and temperance, and the other one is filled with hatred, fear, bitterness. Of course, I asked him, which one wins? ‘The one that you feed’, he told me, and of course, it stayed with me ever since then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I would come back to this analogy from time to time, especially through my early adulthood, and wonder, which wolf am I feeding with my actions? Which wolf am I helping win right now? The metaphor would always strike me right before I was about to make a choice, and I must admit I’ve managed to avoid many conflicts because of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It popped into my head again, just now, as I was wondering whether smacking my boyfriend over the head for ruining the shot would be feeding the bad wolf or not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No but the Frankfurt, get it?” he laughed, and grabbed my wrist to wave it around like a limp melee weapon. He was trying to calm down but it wasn’t working very well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, I wasn’t exactly angry at him, but I was more than over with the video and wanted it to be done. It just so happened that laughing at the end of a video detailing the disappearance of a young woman after her admittance to a mental institution was not exactly what we needed to wrap up a YouTube video. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, I get it, now get a hold of yourself,” I insisted with a smile, and Sunwoo tried to hold back his laughter one more time. “This outro is messing up the mood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took a sharp breath in and then exhaled it much more calm, collected, with focus in his eyes instead of the giddiness. It was nothing short of magical, and I caught myself staring as Sunwoo went through his words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So that’s it, guys, thank you for tuning in for another episode of our True Crime Tuesday show, uploading new episodes every Tuesday, duh, leave a like below if you want more content like this,” he spoke with confidence and a mysterious edge to his voice, a practiced tone, something so loved by our viewers. I forced myself to snap my eyes back to the camera lens and away from Sunwoo’s lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t forget to subscribe and turn on the notifications if you want to stay up to date with all of our mysteries,” I let my voice waver and hang in the air mysteriously, and Sunwoo knew just what to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And remember to stay safe unless you want to end up as our next case.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With that, we were done, and I reached over for the camera. Sighing deeply, I turned it off, and only then allowed myself to release the barely contained chuckle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to stop making these jokes when we’re trying to record,” I could barely bring myself to scold Sunwoo, especially when his smile was brighter than the sun and larger than life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t help it, you walked into that one yourself!” He exclaimed, no malice in his voice despite the accusatory pointed finger. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I did,” I admitted. It was easy to concede defeat with Sunwoo, I thought one more time. Everything was easy with Sunwoo. “So what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So don’t blame me now, Ji Changmin.” He leaned in and placed a chaste kiss on my lips, knowing fully that it’s going to be enough to get me to let him off the hook, as if I haven’t done that already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you wanna go eat?” My stomach was all for that, but Sunwoo seemed to have different plans if the way he lowered his gaze back to my lips again was anything to judge by. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He threw his arms around my shoulders before moving in closer. “I was thinking we should have some fun,” he muttered with his lips against my jaw, and I knew there was no arguing with him when he was in one of those moods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I let my arms sneak around his waist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that what joking about sausages does to you?” I let him kiss me, let my fingers get tangled in his hair. Let myself enjoy it for a second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know it’s not about the jokes,” Sunwoo continued a trail down my neck and I didn’t even care what he was saying, as long as the warm exhales of his breath were hitting my neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” I teased. “Why else could you possibly be so clingy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo groaned, a reply on the tip of his tongue, when the door burst open and Eric walked in. I could hardly believe how fast Sunwoo scrambled off me, but I reckoned I pushed him off at the same speed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yo guys so I was thinking,” Eric either didn’t notice we were in the middle of something, or didn’t care. “Mum’s gone so we should order pizza!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo was looking equal parts embarrassed and amused as he muttered, “when is she not gone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pizza sounds amazing,” I sent Sunwoo a dirty look. He chuckled under the weight of it and turned to face Eric.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pizza is great.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good, because I already have Domino’s website open, so like, come on,” Eric left for downstairs, and just like that, we followed him, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fortunately, I wasn’t picky, and neither was Sunwoo, and we agreed on the toppings in just a few minutes. Between placing the order and the food’s arrival, I managed to absolutely annihilate both Sunwoo and Eric in Mario Kart, and the food seemed like the perfect celebration on top of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I couldn’t remember the last time I was so joyous when eating pizza and kicking it back. Uni turned pizza into depression food, and I felt like I was reclaiming it in a grand act of victory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So like,” Eric chewed on his slice. “What are you guys filming next?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I sighed and pushed my hair back. It was a question I dreaded asking myself as soon as I had just finished recording one episode, but it was unavoidable, and so I forced myself to consider.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was thinking we could maybe do some local story?” I sighed and tried to catch Sunwoo’s eyes. Fortunately, he nodded at me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, it would be cool to do some like, local mysteries,” we haven’t discussed this before, but we were on the same wavelength. “Do you know about any?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eric shrugged. “Not really. I haven’t heard anything since I’ve moved in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve read that there have been a lot of disappearances around here,” Sunwoo looked confused. “You must have heard something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dude, I’ve got no one to talk to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” I nodded. It wasn’t even a jab at Eric, it was just a well established fact that he didn’t really make many friends since moving. Maybe if there were more people his age around the town he wouldn't have invited me and Sunwoo over for the entire summer. Maybe if Eric actually got along with any of his classmates, his mom and stepfather wouldn’t have let us stay for so long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I miss Seoul,” he messed with his hair in frustration, and I couldn’t help but to wince at that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re getting pizza grease in your hair, ew,” I tried to bat his wrist away from his scalp, but Eric leaned away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanna go back to Seoul already, go to uni, you know?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” I could only sigh. It was just a year and a bit of suffering for Eric before he could move back to the city, and we would be able to see each other more often again. “Only three semesters left.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I caught Sunwoo looking at me and Eric both, and he sent me a warm smile. Despite getting along with Eric pretty well, Sunwoo wasn’t as close to him as I was, and I could tell he felt it would be out of place for him to cheer Eric up. It was unnecessary though, I knew Eric would appreciate the sentiment. I hoped to convey that to Sunwoo with a smile and a nod.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, don’t think about this too much right now, you can’t speed up time anyway.” I pat Eric on the back and turned my eyes to sunwoo. “Right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right. I’m thinking we should go hit the town tomorrow for a distraction.” He suggested, and Eric’s face lit up. “Snoop around a bit, ask around. It’s a small town, someone has to have an interesting story to tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, and we could go to that frozen yogurt place,” Eric supplied, and it was almost as if his university related worries disappeared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Exactly. Let’s have fun while we’re here,” Sunwoo beamed back. “And let’s play detectives.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~ ~ ~ ~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seriously, though,” Eric was starting what I felt like is going to be the same question for the fourth time this day. “Don’t you have some editing to do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I groaned, and Sunwoo groaned, too. “No, we don’t!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not touching the video right now, let me take a break,” I whined as if video editing was the bane of my existence. It most certainly was not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let the man procrastinate,” Sunwoo pat Eric on the back and with that, Eric seemed to have been placated. He grumbled something under his nose about how he doesn’t want to interrupt </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was barely a few minute walk back from the cafe to where I'd parked the car, but we managed to get side tracked anyway. As we passed through the town square, I couldn’t help but stop and stare at the sculpture of a mermaid right in the middle of it, surrounded with shrubbery and benches. An idyllic sight for sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think that’s like the fourth mermaid I’ve seen in here,” I couldn’t help but point out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, they’re like, the symbol of the town or something,” Eric tried explaining but he barely had more information than me, it seemed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” I asked, and Eric shrugged comically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you not from here?” A kind voice behind us called.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>We all turned around to see a smiling old lady on one of the benches, seagulls at her feet and a bag of dried peas in her hand. Her salt and pepper hair was styled in an updo that told you exactly how much free time she must have had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry for eavesdropping, boys,” her expression was kind and gentle. “You hear a lot of things when you just sit here and listen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eric was the first one to respond. “I just moved in recently. I don’t know much about the town.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lady nodded, and looked at me and Sunwoo. “And you two?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re just visiting,” Sunwoo answered truthfully. The lady cooed at him, and it didn't surprise me. Old ladies always loved him and his bright disposition.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The mermaids are the patrons of town, you’re right, young man,” she nodded at Eric. “They live in the sea surrounding the island, and they keep our sailors from harm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made sense to me that an island with barely two small towns on it would be chock full of folklore surrounding the sea. What surprised me more is that I didn’t find any interesting information on that when I was looking up things about the town we will be staying at.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that what the legends say?” Sunwoo beamed at the old lady and she beamed back at him. His charm was almost sickening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, dear boy, but that’s not just legends,” she reassured. Sunwoo looked like he was about to sit down next to the lady and have the chat of his life. “I’ll have you know that Manteo is the safest town on the entire coast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How so?” Eric piped up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The waters here are extraordinarily safe. No sailors go missing, no one drowns out at the sea. Not even children!” She rocked back and forth when talking, and dropped a handful of the peas to the ground. The seagulls flocked to it, blocking Sunwoo from actually getting closer to the bench.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Eric was getting invested in the conversation, too, and I fought the urge to groan. “I mean, everyone here grows up with like, motor boats and stuff, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The old lady nodded. “That’s right. We all learn to respect the sea from a young age.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I was impressed with the local patriotism she was displaying. I could hardly find anything like that back at home, in the big city. “That’s really nice,” I said, and caught myself sounding way more sarcastic than I was being.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The sea has to be respected, young man, and if you give it the respect that it’s due, the mermaids will protect you.” She didn’t seem too upset with me. If anything, she seemed happy with the excuse that allowed her to keep talking. She turned her eyes to Eric. “Where do you live, mister? Are you here alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, just outside the town, to the south,” Eric gestured. “I moved in with my mom, but Jeff, uh, my stepdad, he’s from here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lady smacked her mouth in the way only old ladies do. “Does your stepdad work in the harbor?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eric nodded, looking as surprised as I felt. “Yeah, how did you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a small town. Everyone knows each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was enough to give me very weird vibes, but obviously, Sunwoo and Eric thought differently, judging by their pleased smiles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must be really nice,” Sunwoo started making an observation, but the lady ignored him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jeff is one of the people who really use the mermaid’s protection.” I wanted to roll my eyes when she said that. “Sea people know just how often the water saves them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We should get going,” I murmured to Sunwoo and gave him a small arm squeeze. He put his hand on mine, probably to calm me down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you so much for your wisdom, ma’am,” he smiled another charming, brilliant grin. I was almost mad at how perfect it was. Almost, because I was at the other end of that grin often enough to make me love it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, thank you,” Eric gave a shallow bow, and the old lady nodded at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell your stepfather that Ms Kim from the port said hi,” she said, and scattered another fistful of food for the seagulls. I wondered if they really needed that much extra feeding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course, I will, thank you ma’am,” Eric smiled, and so did Sunwoo, and they were all smiling and I felt like a jackass for just wanting to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, thank you,” I added and simply turned around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s so cool, I didn’t know there are many legends around here,” Eric was really enthused about the subject. I couldn’t decide if Sunwoo was really interested, too, or just faking it for the old lady.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, well, old towns always have their folklore, don’t they?” He seemed pensive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wanna include that in the next video?” I asked tentatively, and Sunwoo shook his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think that’s good footage.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There it was. Sunwoo didn’t care that much either. I sighed with relief, knowing I’m not as much of a jackass as I thought I am.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go home?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not yet,” Sunwoo shook his head. “I wanna go to the beach for a second.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s foggy and ugly,” I countered, but Sunwoo wouldn’t have it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, I just want a stroll.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can go alone,” I suggested, more of a question than a statement, but Sunwoo nodded. He didn’t seem to be offended by that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, fine by me,” he smiled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you didn’t want to go to the library anyway,” Eric reminded him, and I nodded at his words. “So maybe we can go to the library?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like a plan,” we agreed, and left in our respective ways. I didn’t have it in me to tell Eric that I’m not very interested in the library, either, but I could see why he wanted to go there, and didn’t want to be the assshole who has the car but won’t drive people around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The library was a short way away from the beach, and just as boring as I was worried it would be. Eric picked some books and even videos to borrow, swearing he’s gonna read them at home, and I marvelled how tiny and uneventful it was compared to the university library that I would always study in. Nothing in it pulled my attention, that was, until Eric started making displeased faces at the librarian.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It would be ready, if you had a children’s section card.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eric sighed heavily, and forced himself to be polite, I could recall that expression of his from school. “But I can’t get a children’s section card, I’m not a kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, didn’t you make one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he tried explaining, but the librarian cut him off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t you go to the library with your class?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I didn’t go to school here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The librarian looked him up and down in a truly nasty way. “Figures.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that even mean?” Eric threw his hands up. I shushed him immediately, but it was too late, and Eric raising his voice was all the librarian needed to be even more nasty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry, I’m gonna have to ask you two to leave,” she was looking far too satisfied for someone who was kicking out two guys around their age out form a public establishment for no good reason, but I wasn’t about to argue.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, let’s go,” I guided Eric out, and tried to get him not to complain too loudly. Only when the door closed behind us, I finally changed my face from stone cold politeness to real concern. “What was that all about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Eric whined at me. “I get this all the fucking time. People just act like assholes for no good reason.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I felt my eyebrows rise up to the edge of my hairline. “People are like this to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” the amount of disappointment in Eric’s voice was too high for me to not get mad.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because, what, because you just moved in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so,” he shrugged, and I felt like I have to stay mad in front of this injustice, if Eric won’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s fucked up. Really fucked up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eric shrugged again. “I told you I don’t really have many friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, but I thought…” I couldn’t finish the thought. There was no way of saying ‘I didn’t think it’s that bad’ that didn’t sound terrible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s just go, alright?” Eric lowered his chin and lifted his shoulders, and looked almost like an upset hedgehog.  There wasn’t much left for me to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, let’s go,” I agreed, and started walking towards the beach where we dropped Sunwoo off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>We walked in silence, the whole fifteen minutes or so, right until we stepped down from the pier and onto the rocky beach. Eric didn’t seem to be in a talking mood, which, however rare, was perfectly understandable. I knew him well enough to know that he’s going to want some cheering up soon really soon, but that for the time being he probably just wanted to be left alone with his thoughts for a second. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks filled up the silence well enough to let us just walk in peace for a bit; although it was almost awkward, the way it was just sound, but no visuals. We stayed closer to the land, and couldn’t even see the sealine, only hear it, hissing and singing in monotonous waves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where’s Sunwoo?” Eric asked, and I almost got embarrassed that I didn’t even think about that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He said he’ll be on the beach,” I answered simply, because that’s all the information I got.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but we’re almost at the car,” Eric pointed, and a quick look behind be told me he was right. The edge of the cement parking was clearly visible through the fog.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s probably just a bit further ahead?” I reasoned, and Eric nodded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna go wait by the car.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll go look for him,” I answered, and we parted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It really shouldn’t take me more than a couple of minutes to find Sunwoo, there was no reason for him to stray further ahead, to be far away from the car. Even in the fog, I should’ve been able to find him pretty easily. Understandably, after the third minute with no sight of Sunwoo, I got frustrated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I quickly whipped out my phone and called him, which is what any sane person would have done in my place. After the call went through unanswered, my frustration wanted to pick up, but instead, it got replaced by worry just slightly. Why wouldn’t he pick up?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gritting my teeth, I called again, pacing around the beach, and right when I realized this call will probably go through again, I heard the faint sound of a ringtone in the distance. It cut off right when my call disconnected, and it was pretty clear to me it has to be Sunwoo’s phone ringing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After only a few strides I was there by his side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sunwoo, what the hell?” I grabbed his arm and tried to get him to face me. It was like moving a sleeping person, and his eyes were sluggish and hazy. “Sunwoo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm?” He asked, and his gaze slowly sharpened, focused on my face, his expression tensed. “What’s wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why weren’t you picking up the phone?” I was too taken aback to be frustrated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were calling?” Sunwoo checked his phone, and raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw the three missed calls. “I didn’t even notice, sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>”I heard it ringing,” I sighed, frustrated, and Sunwoo furrowed his brows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I had my phone muted,” he shook his head and shrugged. “Whatever, are we going now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” I had to try really hard to resist the urge to roll my eyes at Sunwoo in that moment. “Eric’s waiting by the car.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo nodded and started walking, but then stopped in his tracks. I turned back to face him, but couldn’t see his face with the way he was watching the sea closely. It was almost as if he was trying to see something off in the distance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you hear that splash just now?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s the waves, Sunwoo,” I deadpanned, but instead of laughing at my dry humor, Sunwoo tsked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, it’s not…” He sighed deeply and took his phone out again, turned the camera on, started to take a video of the shoreline.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On one hand, he did say he’s gonna take some, on the other, it baffled me that he still needed to take them. I was sure he’d be done by now. I was about to comment on how I’m sure we’ve got enough and can go back, when I noticed something odd on Sunwoo’s wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” I asked and pointed to his forearm. He didn’t seem to know what I’m talking about, until I pointed at the spot directly, and he pushed his sleeve further up to get a better look.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A patch of his skin, about the size of a thumbprint, was pale and looked almost wet. It was shaped almost like a fish scale, positioned almost exactly in the middle of the outside of Sunwoo’s wrist. Sunwoo just furrowed his brows at it, as confused as me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Weird, I didn’t notice this before.” He ran a finger over the mark with no sign of pain. “I think it’s a blister?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I cocked my head. “Did you burn yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, probably,” he shrugged, and finally pocketed his phone. “Probably when making breakfast or something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I wanted to ask if he should’ve remembered a burn as big as this, but Sunwoo didn’t seem to be in pain or at all distressed about the blister, so I left it alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it’s an alien parasite or a zombie mutagen, I’m leaving you on this island,” I joked instead, and Sunwoo broke a smile at that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” he nudged me, and something in his eyes shifted. He was looking more alive, less hazy, and I was happy with that. “Let’s go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That seemed to be it for the unsettling feelings. When we got into the car, Eric put on some bright pop song, and my headlights cut through the fog easily. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sure, video editing might be something I always wanted to do, but everyone has their limits. With how much audio editing I had to do for my college, any program that had “editor” in its name made me grit my teeth if I had to work on it for more than an hour. Still, I was a man of my word and I finished syncing all the clips and added the outro screen quick enough to start the upload process with no stress and kick back for the rest of the evening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Is what I told myself I’d do, and then I found myself searching for ‘Manteo secrets’, ‘missing people Manteo’, everything and anything that could clue me in on some mystery interesting enough to make a ten minute video out of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sure enough, there were many mentions of police cases in the local news, quite a bunch for how small the town was, but then again I figured the local newspaper didn’t really have anything else to write about. Just dozens of police reports of people going missing all across the island, most of them assumed dead, their bodies lost in the sea, most of them too similar to cases we’ve done in the past, with too little information published, or, mostly, just uninteresting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally, one of the articles piqued my interest and rewarded me handsomely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>KIM YOUNGHOON, MISSING</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The page was long and promising. I cracked my knuckles, sensing good content.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A quick scroll through the article told me everything I needed to know. A young guy, around my age, declared missing almost a year ago, body never found. Known to enjoy photography and hiking, no leads, no suspects. A perfect case for us, right in the town.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you looking at?” Sunwoo’s voice broke my trance. He crashed down on the sofa behind me and I immediately moved closer to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look at this,” I said, and inched the laptop towards Sunwoo. “This is interesting.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes scanned the article displayed on the screen and I observed his face as I scrolled down. I could tell he was latching onto all the same keywords as me, ‘missing’, ‘presumed dead’, ‘family has no leads’. My smile grew as he moved closer, trying to read more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is perfect,” he finally muttered, and I couldn’t hold my excitement in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Isn’t it?” I opened another tab where I had some more insight on the case, written down by some local amateur detective. “Look at this, there’s even a place where he was last seen.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just as I promised, when I scrolled down, there was some footage of the man from CCTV cameras. Although grainy and desaturated, they clearly showed a guy around our age, snooping around in a fashionable jacket, holding an old, analog camera.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"A water plant? What would he do in a water plant?" Sunwoo read off the screen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well, why don't we find out?" I smiled a grin that I knew would get me a smack to my shoulder for being creepy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of smacking me, though, Sunwoo just flashed me an uncertain but intrigued look. "Are you actually thinking about going there?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had to think for a second before answering, but my opinion, shockingly, did not change. It would be perfect for our channel, bringing in the right amount of views.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We said we can do a local mystery not because we want to continue sitting on our butts and reading off websites, but because we wanted to do something new, right?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo nodded. "Right."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And I think going out into the field and doing some research up close and personal is the perfect way to do it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could see Sunwoo was still uncertain, but he was considering my proposition with a bite to his lip. He wanted to have a breakthrough video to his name just as much as I did, and checking stuff out in person, taking our own footage, making our own commentary from the very place the mysterious disappearance victim was last seen in, well, that was guaranteed to get some clicks. In fact, it was hard for me to understand why he was hesitating.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's just a vlog but with reading off the creepy script," I reasoned. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're right, we wanted to shoot outside anyway," he was looking more convinced, and I wiggled my eyebrows at him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo shrugged. "They kick our asses for loitering."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't even think he was at the water plant for a long time, look. There aren't even any shots of him inside, just passing by on the outside. We can just go to the forest and the beach near the water plant, take some shots, call it a day."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As I said that, Sunwoo's expression fell, and I wasn't sure why, at least not until he sighed heavily and spoke his mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The vibes around the outskirts of the town give me weird vibes, you know?" He shrugged again, no doubt in an attempt to look nonchalant, but I knew him well enough to know that he must be actually stressed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's weird because it's a hole in the road," I put my hand on his thigh and rubbed it up and down for reassurance. He gave me a small smile. "Think about how perfect it's gonna be for the video."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To that, Sunwoo nodded. "You're right, the rocky beaches look incredible on camera."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"There's nothing to be scared of," I added, and made a grab for Sunwoo's hand. I didn't continue speaking until he gave me a squeeze back. "Just a small town, right?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo got scared easily, that was no secret. He got worried easily, too, thinking about the missing people cases or the murder victims for a long time after the shooting was finished, wondering what they could have felt, wondering what he would have done. Wondering, thinking, imagining, thinking about ghosts and demons and other supernatural possibilities and then pretending to discard them all just because, well, one has to move on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I never did. The stories remained just stories for me, and sometimes I even felt bad about it; seeing how much Sunwoo cared and wondering if something’s wrong with me for thinking the so-called possessed dolls are adorable, or calmly counting casualties in our stories as if they weren’t real people who died. If I should be a little more sensitive, a little more like Sunwoo who paled at the mention of haunted houses and serial killers breaking out of their jail cells.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ultimately, that was why we worked. Desensitized or not, I wasn’t hurting anyone with my small horror obsession, quite the opposite. I knew what words to say to remind Sunwoo that a murderer isn’t going to come after him, that most missing people cases are just undiscovered corpses, and not human trafficking victims, that ghosts don’t exist. I was able to make him shrug it off and forget about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was good enough for me. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, just a small town." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With a sigh, Sunwoo slid off the couch next to where I was sitting and looped his arms around my shoulders, burying his face in my neck. It wasn't unlike him to seek physical affection, and it wasn't unlike him either to want comfort when he's a little freaked out, but something about the way he did it this time made me worried.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You alright?" I asked, hugging him closer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," he reassured, lips close to my ear, and sighed again. "I just haven't been sleeping well the past few days."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could only pull him into my lap and kiss his forehead at that. Couldn't say I was very surprised to hear that with how he was sleeping in until late and how he tossed and turned when I was half-asleep already, but I wasn't happy about it either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Want to get some fun herbal tea for that or something?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shook his head and sighed yet again, but this time with a more hopeful expression. "I'll just steal something from Eric's mom's cabinet."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You sure you mean tea?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo laughed at that, although weakly, and I was more than content to hear that sound. "Yes, tea, I'm not gonna get drunk to fall asleep better."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right, for alcohol you’d steal from mister Jeff,” I wiggled my eyebrows and Sunwoo laughed a little bit more and just like that, everything seemed to be fine again.</span>
</p>
<p>~ ~ ~ ~</p>
<p>
  <span>The water plant was pretty unremarkable, just a few buildings, a couple of water towers, and a fence. There was no guest entrance easily available and no welcoming guard, and after leaving my car I felt a little out of place. Casting just one look at Sunwoo I could tell he felt the same way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So, what do we do now?" He asked, as if I had any answers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Uh," I scratched the nape of my neck. "Ask if we can film? Take a few shots?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Right," he nodded, and started working on getting the camera out of the car. I approached the only security guard I could find.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The conversation was stilted and awkward, but civil, and the guy told us that yes, we can film here, as long as it's only outside, asked us what it's for, asked us to not film him. I assured him that we're gonna blur his face and he seemed content with that, and when I got to Sunwoo, he was already taking pan shots of the outside of the water plant and the surrounding forest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This area to the right, see that?" I asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Uh huh."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think that's where the CCTV shots were taken." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After taking a look for himself, Sunwoo agreed with me. The stripes painted on the wall were pretty characteristic, combined with the cracked concrete floor we could be almost certain it was the exact same place Younghoon was last seen at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We took a few shots, even one of the security cameras pointing at us, and I couldn't help but realize we were standing in the same exact spot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is kinda creepy," Sunwoo said, and I figured he must have been thinking the same thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But isn't it kinda exciting, too?" I nudged him lightly, as to not disturb the shot. "We found the very place he was at. Almost like we're detectives."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Okay, it is kinda exciting," Sunwoo gave in and smiled a little. "This is gonna be so good for the channel. Imagine this," he nodded towards the display. "But desaturated, with that creepy music."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Perfect," I had to agree. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As exciting as being in the very heart of the mystery was, the novelty of being in the same spot wore off pretty quickly. All in all the water plant was... Boring. Just a building surrounded with a forest, and there were only so many shots you could take of the same three outside walls before you ran out of material. That, and the security guard was giving us weird looks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We moved away from the plant and down what I assumed to be a hiking trail. It only led through the woods for a short time, and then we reached a rocky beach with a lonely wooden dock and not much to it. I took out my phone to film some extra shots.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He could have been here, you know?" Sunwoo broke the silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hm?" I had to take a second to remember we were trailing a missing person. "You're right. This isn't even far away from the plant. Do you think he was looking in this direction?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Could be. Let's check that at home, that'd be great footage."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I walked towards the wooden deck. It seemed secure, so I got onto it and took a panoramic shot of the sea line.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was rocky, with a lot of little islands scattered through it, boulders sticking out like remains of a time gone by, dark spots against the dark sea. If I zoomed in, I could even see the beach and the town on the other side of the harbor, and If I panned to the far left, I could see the lighthouse in the distance, light still off. It occurred to me that it would be pretty hard to navigate this area with a bigger ship, but that made sense with how most of the boats I've seen so far were motorboats and fishing boats rather than large ferries.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We should record some of the vlog here," Sunwoo pointed out, pulling me out of my daze for the second time in just half an hour. I had to shake my head to get myself together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Definitely." Sunwoo already set up the tripod, and we quickly found the best back background combined with the best angle of the natural light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You prepared a script, right?" Sunwoo asked me and I tried to put on my best apologetic expression. "Changmin..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't," I had to admit. Sunwoo groaned, and I felt like I had to defend myself.  "Oh come on, we don't need a script for this."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sure, let's not write a script for anything anymore," he rolled his eyes at me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Let's just say that we're at the place he was possibly seen last at, he enjoyed hiking, it's not unreasonable to assume he came here. something about the water plant."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Begrudgingly, Sunwoo nodded. "I'll open up the news article on my phone for some reference on the guy." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"See?" I flashed him a smile. "Not that bad without a script."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo smiled back, and I couldn't help but pull him in for a little peck. He didn't grumble or push me away, a sign that he wasn't really mad at me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once we turned on the camera and synchronized the microphone, the filming process was all too familiar and went by very quickly. I talked about how we are close to the water plant from the CCTV, Sunwoo talked about the frequent disappearances surrounding the city. Soon, we had the informative part over and I felt like it was the time to do our bit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I honestly think he could have drowned," I started after Sunwoo was done checking his phone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Shut up," Sunwoo whacked my arm and I laughed a little at that. "You can't say that, what if he's not dead? He's still missing."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, but no one's seen him for almost a year, and he disappeared right next to a body of water."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Changmin, we are right next to that body of water," Sunwoo was playing his fear up just a tiny bit, and I knew how to latch onto it perfectly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe his corpse is right next to us, too?" I got another whack for that. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You better be!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm kidding," I only waited a few seconds before delivering the punch line. "The police would have surely found the body if it was this close to the shore."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Stop talking about corpses," Sunwoo was nervously looking up into the sky and I couldn't help but laugh at that. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Would you prefer he was still alive, trapped underwater like some sort of a sea monster?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. "I know those things don't exist."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But what if they did," I couldn't fight a grin. "What if they do?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Then they're gonna get you," Sunwoo whacked me one last time for good measure and went back to scrolling through his phone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you wanna do a second take on the disappearances around Manteo?" He asked, very reasonably considering we fumbled and waffled a little bit around that part, but something else caught my attention.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What about this weird thing?" I grabbed him by the wrist where the weird blister was. It was still as pale as ugly as it was the last time I saw it. "Do you wanna say something to the viewers about it?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't think anyone's gonna ask," he shrugged and pulled his wrist away from my touch. "It's just a burn mark."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, but..." reminding him that he didn't remember getting burnt seemed a strange thing to do, and I stopped myself mid-sentence. "Alright, whatever."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If you don't wanna redo the shot, let's leave. Let's do the outro back in the bedroom." He smiled weakly at me and I couldn't help but to raise my eyebrows at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't tell me I actually scared you?" I didn't actually want to traumatize my boyfriend. "You know monsters aren't real."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You didn't scare me," Sunwoo walked over to the camera and turned it off before continuing. "I'm just hungry."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I laughed at that, and my laughter seemed to bounce off the rocky beach. It was almost nice and soothing. It was also almost unsettling, how it seemed to cut right through the sound of the waves. I tried not to think about it as I turned off the mic and gathered our stuff.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What if the audio is shitty?" I only then realized we only sound checked once. It was completely on me to take care of the sound, and I completely neglected it, so I only had myself to blame.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The waves are just gonna be a nice ambiance, very creepy and all," Sunwoo missed the point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah but the volume levels are gonna be all over the place. Or well, could be."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you wanna check it?" He offered, and lowered his backpack. The thought of putting our filming setup back up again and recording everything again, with different mic settings, made me shiver.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hell no. Let's just take some shots of the rocks and shit like that on our way back, so if the sound is crap, we can re-record just the talking and put it over the landscapes."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sounds good to me," Sunwoo agreed and just like that we both had our cameras out. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As we walked back into the forest, the hiking trail seemed much darker than the last time, and I almost got worried we weren't going the right way. We couldn't have been, though, seeing as there was only one trail leading up to the part of the beach we came from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The light is shit," Sunwoo voiced my concerns and I was glad to hear that it wasn't just me thinking this. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I guess it got cloudy?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Sunwoo lowered the camera. "Wanna film with flash?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sure," I agreed and we turned on the flash. On one hand, it was a shitty LED thing we got off amazon, so it didn't help that much, on the other, it still felt like an overkill to use a light in the middle of the day.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We aren't even getting any good clips, is this worth it?" I grumbled, trailing behind Sunwoo.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think we're going parallel to the shore, aren't we?" Sunwoo ignored my question completely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah?" I was confused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Then why can't we hear any waves?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I froze in place to prick my ears better, but Sunwoo was right. There were no sea sounds coming through the woods, and I didn't think they were deep enough to warrant that. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hear the water, only the slow rustling of leaves in the wind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's kinda funny," I had to admit. "I didn't realize threes are that good at stopping sounds."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo furrowed his brows. "Are we going in the right direction?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The path is literally straight as fuck and we haven't really left it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"True," Sunwoo did not look convinced. I walked over to him and gently took the camera out of his hand. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think that's enough shots. Let's just go back to the car." As always, I felt the need to jump in whenever he felt spooked. "The atmosphere is weird with the flash."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo let me turn off the LED light and close the display, and followed me wordlessly when I started walking again. I almost wanted to grab his hand for reassurance, but he seemed to want to stay behind me, and I wasn't about to drag him by force. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I remembered the hike as pretty short, but maybe that was because we talked while walking, and in a light mood. In the semi-darkness, the trail seemed twice as long, and now that Sunwoo pointed out the lack of sea sounds, I couldn't help but listen much more attentively. I could only hear the wind, our footsteps, maybe a seagull in the distance from time to time, far above our heads.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then, I heard it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At first, the sound sounded almost like wind howling in the distance, except there were no vast expanses for the wind to go through to make that noise. Then I noticed an affliction in the howling, and then it got clearer, and then my brain helpfully supplied to me that the sound must be singing. I felt almost rooted to the spot, trying to listen, trying to figure out if the sound is even real.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It felt like the singing was clinging to my skin somehow, like wet clothes, like sea salt clings to hair. It was as beautiful as it was haunting despite being barely audible, and I had to lean in to hear more, catch more, turn my head towards the sound as if hypnotized. I took a step towards where I thought the sound was coming from, and the sound of a tree branch snapping under my foot sobered me up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I dared to throw a glance at Sunwoo, and found him looking in the same direction I was looking in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can you hear that?” He asked, and my heart sunk to the floor.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” I whispered back. I wanted to say more but couldn’t bring myself to, afraid to interrupt the singing, because what if we missed the sound?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It sounds like singing," he said what I was thinking. I always loved it when he did that, when he was on the same brainwave as me, I always adored the proof of our bond, but not in this moment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What freak sings in the forest?" My voice staggered and softened as I said that. Somehow, it felt wrong to call this high pitched, melodic, haunting sound a song of a freak, but I figured that in the weird mood of the beach, a sound like that would spook anyone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo didn't answer, didn't even give me a questioning look. He simply continued to stare into the distance, between the trees, towards where the sound was coming from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I felt an itch in me, some old frustration that needed to be scratched. My legs acted before I could stop them, and I started walking towards the source of the sound, and when I realized I'm going off the path, I didn't stop even for a moment. I had to find the source of the singing, had to find the singer, confront the truth. I had to find a human face on the other end of the sound, I told myself, and ignored how the itch clawed at my skin further than this.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo followed me closely, without a word, and I tried to hide my surprise. He wasn't the one to go head first into the unknown, but the look on his face told me he's battling the same craving. That he needs to follow the voice, too, before the song ends, before the sound disappears.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I don't think we walked for more than a few minutes. The sound grew closer, we followed it easily, maneuvering between the trees and bushes without a problem. The singing grew more intense too, although I still wasn't able to distinguish any words. I almost asked Sunwoo if he can, but I was too afraid to speak over the sound, to disturb it, not when it seemed so close I worried that if I speak, the mysterious singer will hear me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo grabbed my arm with an iron grip and pulled me to him. It felt wrong to stop myself from walking, but once I did, I noticed I was almost short of breath with how quickly I was going.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I can't see anyone through the woods," Sunwoo hissed into my ear. He was just as afraid to be heard as I was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Are they hiding?" There were a few thick trees in front of us, but it was hard to see anything further. It got pretty dark, I realized, as I could barely scope out the beach behind the line of the forest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The voice grew even thinner, lighter, it echoed even more and I had to free myself from Sunwoo's grasp to follow it, catch it before it quieted down completely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Wait," Sunwoo hissed again, but I ignored his words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's right there, Sunwoo, right there," I was going to walk even if it meant walking backwards, with Sunwoo grabbing my sleeve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Stop, Changmin," he raised his voice and I tried to free my arm from his grasp.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's right there!" I raised my voice too, and the singing intensified with us, shrill, yet still beautiful. It was so close. I had to find the source.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, wait!" Sunwoo made one last grab at me, and I felt myself tilting backwards, losing balance, falling. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo pulled me forwards by my hoodie, and we stumbled a few steps, I almost knocked him over. Shocked by the feeling of weightlessness, I looked behind myself and found a hole in the ground, barely covered with ferns and wet planks. It was deep enough that I couldn't easily see the bottom of it, and it seemed that I almost walked right into it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a few deep breaths, I realized I can no longer hear singing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What the fuck was that?" Sunwoo spoke up first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had to take another deep breath in before finding myself capable of answering. "I'm sorry," I said, not sure why.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo seemed to get it, though, and he looked down and away from me. "Yeah," he cleared his throat. "This was weird."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just seconds ago finding the source of the singing, following the echoing voice seemed to be the most important thing in the world. Now, I wasn't even sure why I cared about it in the first place. I could hardly recall what the voice sounded like, too. It confused me to even think about it, and I was more than willing to forget that I just ran through the forest like a crazy person in order to face some lost soprano.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What's this, anyway?" I changed the subject and pointed at the hole in the ground.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo prodded at some of the planks with his foot, and they readily moved to the side. They didn't look old or rotten, just wet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Some kind of a manhole?" He tried.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Get the camera, let's shine some light inside," I suggested and Sunwoo gave me a worried look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We are not getting down there. You almost broke your neck falling into that thing."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hell yes we are," I protested. "Even if we're not gonna go down we can just take a look."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Changmin, this is some random manhole next to the water plant, it can't possibly be that exciting.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was already next to the hole with a flashlight on my phone turned on when I answered. "Come on, we should investigate and get footage."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shining my light into the hole, I could see a ladder down. It looked pretty stable and dry, and there weren’t even any cobwebs in sight. I moved the planks to be able to see inside better. I turned around to broadcast my excitement to Sunwoo, and he looked more than prepared to see the grin on my face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Christ, why the fuck do you love things like this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh come on, we need to go down there. If not for the footage then just to satisfy my curiosity, please.” Sunwoo was still frowning at me, so I whined. “I can go alone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hell no, I’m not letting you down there alone.” that seemed to have done the trick. Sunwoo was turning on the camera and putting the flash back on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If Sunwoo asked me why exactly I was so excited about the prospect of going down some sort of maintenance route to a water plant, I wouldn’t be able to answer. Something about it made me feel like a kid, and I wanted to see, discover, explore. Taking creepy footage was just an added bonus, and something I could use as an explanation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This isn’t even abandoned, we’re breaking in probably; this is just some water plant stuff,” Sunwoo kept reasoning as I put my phone securely in my pocket and prepared to go down. “Please watch your fucking step.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course, babe,” I answered and started descending, step by step. With Sunwoo shining light on me, it was more than easy, and I found my feet touching the ground after just a few moments.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When I pulled out my phone and turned both the camera and the flashlight on, I expected just about anything, including a corpse or a levitating artefact, or even simply a big door with a ‘staff only’. I did not, however, expect an oddly normal looking room with a chair, an old mattress, a pile of clothes and a desk full of papers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So? Is it safe?” Sunwoo asked me from above.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” I answered simply. “It’s kinda boring honestly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you mean?” Sunwoo asked, but I could hear him rustling and trying to get down already. I grabbed the camera from him and illuminated the ladder for him until he was down with me, taking the camera back, throwing the light around the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was dusty in some places, and looked pretty used in the others. Most of the cement walls had water stains on them, and there was a heavy iron door in one of the corners that seemed to be locked. Other than that, the furniture and trash littered around looked almost like they belonged in a teenager’s bedroom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think this is just a drug den,” I sighed, disappointed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are all those papers?” Sunwoo started filming the boxes and folders filling up the desk, the ones that looked pretty unused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are we really gonna go look through a junkie’s stuff?” I asked, as if my hands weren’t itching to get a closer look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a locker in one of the corners. I opened it, not expecting much, and was instead faced with an old analogue camera and a camcorder, both resting on top of a pile of 8mm tape cassettes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I picked up some of the cassettes just to get a closer look and film them better, when I heard a gasp come from Sunwoo.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” I abandoned the tapes and quickly looked to where Sunwoo was pointing with his light.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That hoodie,” I could hear him zoom in with the camera. “Doesn’t it look familiar?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a second my eyes fell on the article of clothing Sunwoo was talking about. It was a baby blue hoodie with a checkered pattern on one of the sleeves, and I knew instantly why Sunwoo recognized it, why he was so shocked. I knew, because I spent the last two days making fun of the odd sleeve.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s what Younghoon was wearing,” I stated simply. Sunwoo pointed the camera to me and I couldn’t even be mad at that. “Do you think this is his or just something similar?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This is a weird fucking hoodie,” Sunwoo countered, and zoomed in on it again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I opened up the CCTV footage on my phone and took another look. Sure enough, the hoodie was identical, and after a second more of looking, I realized that the camera Younghoon is holding seems really familiar, too. I opened up the locker full of cassettes again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look,” I shone my phone’s light in there and waited for Sunwoo to come and take a shot of his own. “Do you think it’s the same one as well?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Holy shit,” he breathed out. “I think we should call the cops.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Cops?” I reacted in shock but after just a second of consideration I knew Sunwoo was right to suggest that. If this belonged to Younghoon, really, then it was all a part of an investigation scene, and we could get in real trouble for messing with it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Changmin, he could have been here,” Sunwoo started reasoning and I immediately nodded and waved him off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, you’re right. You’re right. He could have been here after the footage from the water plant was taken.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We took enough shots,” I could hear the stress in Sunwoo’s voice. “Proof that we didn’t touch anything and shit. Let’s just call the cops.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I nodded again, this time solemnly. “Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We got out of the bunker, and Sunwoo called the police. As he explained the situation, I zoned out, trying to comprehend what's happening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The more I thought about it, the more I started being convinced he's doing the right thing. After all, most things didn't even seem old, weren't dusted over or musty. It didn't make much sense for a year-old hoodie to not be musty, but the fact remained that we found it, it was there, and it probably belonged to a missing person, and perhaps among the clothes and tapes and papers there were clues that'd help find the Younghoon guy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sorry, sir," Sunwoo's distressed voice brought my attention back to him and away from the creepy place. "What do you mean?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo gestured at me with one hand and I wasn't sure what he meant, so just to be safe I turned on the camera and started recording him. He gave me a thumbs up, and then frowned again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But sir, we think this might belong to the missing person, Kim Younghoon. The camera as well as the clothing found matches what he was wearing when he was last seen, the footage was available to the public, it's not a crime- Trespassing? We are in a forest!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could only hear half of the conversation, and was barely able to make sense of what Sunwoo was saying. I tried gesturing at him to turn on the loudspeaker, and he got it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"-the sleeping dogs lay. He has been presumed dead for several months now and I'm sure his family wouldn't want to be receiving false hope now that they've made peace." The cop's voice rang from the phone and through the forest and I could hardly believe that it was really what I was hearing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"But what if he's not dead?" Sunwoo pushed on, and the cop cut him off immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't try to be all smart now, son. I assure you the police know the full scope of the situation better than you do."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The absurdity of the situation was too much for me. I leaned closer to the phone to speak. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So you don't think this is a scene related to the investigation?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The cop either didn't care that he heard a different voice, or he didn't notice the change. "The investigation is closed."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"So we wouldn't be interfering with anything?" Sunwoo nudged me to my side painfully, either to signal for me to stop or to ask what the fuck I'm doing. I didn't stop, though. "We can go through the forest?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"As I said, you're probably trespassing, and you should get out and leave the bunker or whatever alone."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We aren't-" Sunwoo started but I interrupted him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Alright, thank you for your help, officer," I lunged for the phone and disconnected.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What the fuck?" Sunwoo asked immediately, but he seemed relieved to not be talking to the officer anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If they don't wanna do it, we're gonna do it," I said and pointed to the hideout with the stash of secrets inside of it. "You heard the man, he said it's basically free domain. We can take all of the clothes, tapes, examine them ourselves."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I half expected Sunwoo to ask me if I'm mad. Instead, he bit his lip in consideration, and weighed his phone in his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If your child was presumed dead, and there was evidence possibly pointing that he might be alive, would you rather have your peace, or have the facts?" I knew it's unfair of me to pull this kind of argument, but something about the whole case made me feel strongly. Like I had to uncover the truth. Like if we didn't do it, no one would.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I mean, we aren't really detectives. We don't know what we're doing," Sunwoo started. I was ready to interrupt him, try to convince him more, but he raised his hand to stop me from speaking. "But if we don't do this, then who will?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a fire in Sunwoo's eyes, the same one that was always there when he witnessed injustice or mistreatment, when he thought about the victims of the mysteries we would talk about. To hear him say the same words I was thinking, to hear my good, loving, caring Sunwoo say that, I knew that snooping further was the right choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was way too happy about the fact that we had almost empty backpacks with just some filming equipment in them. I managed to pack all of the cassettes, the two cameras, and some of the photographs lying around, while Sunwoo got the hoodie as well as some of the papers and one of the small, locked boxes. We just picked the most suspicious looking items until our backpacks were full.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We can always come back here if we need to," I reasoned when we were ready to go back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was dark outside already, and my phone was almost running out of battery from all the recording and using the flashlight, and it was a struggle to force it to turn on google maps and give us our location so we could pin it and never lose it again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sunwoo," I called him over when my phone finally decided to cooperate. "We were walking back to the water plant, right?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Right?" He was confused. "That's where we came from." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I gestured at him again, until he leaned closer over to my phone and took a good hard look at the screen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>My app showed us as being over three miles from the water plant, next to the coast on the opposite side of the island.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What the fuck?" He asked, and I couldn't help but to giggle nervously.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's really weird, I think the map is wrong."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We couldn't possibly have gotten this lost," I said, and tried closing and re-opening the maps app again. Unfortunately, my phone did not like that one bit, and I had to turn off the GPS in fear of my phone dying completely. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"My phone says the same thing," Sunwoo confirmed, turning on the satellite view of the map and showing me something that looked, well, like a bunch of trees next to a coast, very far away from the water plant. "Seems we should go this way?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He pointed to the general direction which I was pretty sure we came from anyway. Following that direction seemed the only sane solution, and so we did, in silence, using the camera light as a flashlight to get between the thicker parts of the forest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It got really dark really fast," Sunwoo noticed, and I hummed in agreement, and then checked the time on my phone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's 8pm, it's not surprising it's that dark."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Huh," he only answered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't say anything more, but I could bet good money he was thinking the same thing as I was. That we left before 4pm, and that it seemed really, really strange, that we spent four hours recording, and then running around the forest. I decided to not comment, though, and neither did Sunwoo. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The way back to the car was shockingly quick, despite the fact that the GPS kept breaking and we had to try and find our way to the hiking trail with no help. When we did, after just a few minutes, we were back at the badly lit water plant parking, back at my car, back where we departed from. We hardly talked on the way back to Eric's place.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When I woke up from my nightmare, Sunwoo was already out of bed, probably downstairs, and I was grateful for that. He didn't need to see me panicked and breathing heavily, and I didn't exactly want to explain to him that I had a dream about the weird song we heard in the forest, and that the worst part of the dream was how my legs would refuse to carry me towards the source of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I sat in the bed with my head in my hands for a good while, thinking about the previous morning, full of disbelief.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>How come we've never talked about the singing? How come we only brushed it off with a simple 'what the fuck', and never addressed it again? How come I almost forgot how desperately I needed to follow the voice to wherever it led, so badly that I almost pushed Sunwoo when all he was trying to do was stop me from breaking my legs?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was dead set on asking Sunwoo about this when I saw him, and walked downstairs with absolute conviction. The haunting song was fresh in my brain, and I wanted an explanation so badly it made me itch.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I ended up not saying anything, though, when I found a smiling woman downstairs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Good morning Mrs Sohn," I said to her and thanked god I slept in something more than just boxer briefs today.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hi!" Eric's mum was full of energy and loving her life and looking at her almost made me feel like dying isn't worth it. "Are you boys having fun here?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh yeah, it's wonderful. I love Manteo," I assured her. What was I gonna say? The town's pretty neat except for the part where a guy disappears and no one is looking for him a year later? "Are you heading to work?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, actually! I'm going to have some fun with my girlfriends, we're hitting the town later tonight." She winked at me, and it felt both endearing and awkward. Such is the nature of talking to your friend's parents I supposed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's great! And mister Jeff?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Jeffy's at work. And your boyfriend's in the kitchen," she winked again, and this time I couldn't stop the groan of embarrassment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's fine," I tried, but Mrs Sohn was one of those mothers who tried really really hard to show their kid and their friends that she's progressive and up to date, and chill with everything. I supposed it was much better that way than to hear homophobic remarks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Eric baby!" I got surprised when she suddenly yelled towards the general direction of the depth of the house, and she smiled at my flinch. "I'm going!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Bye mum!" Came Eric's voice from the general depth. "Love you!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Be good!" And with that, the storm of a woman that was Eric's mum left the house, locking the door behind herself as if I couldn't do it for her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I followed Eric's voice and reached the kitchen. Sunwoo was there just as promised, sitting by the table, nursing a cup of coffee, watching Eric rummage through the cupboards.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Close encounter of the third kind?" Sunwoo joked when I sat down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah. Can't believe I actually saw your mum, she's always so busy." I nodded at Eric. "What're you doing?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Looking for cocoa. I want hot chocolate."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's the middle of the summer." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's not even that hot," Eric reasoned back, and I couldn't help but agree. The entire island was cooler than what I was used to on the mainland, and I blamed the ocean currents or something for that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I told Eric about the bunker yesterday," Sunwoo sent me a careful look from above his mug. "He said the police are often like this over here."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Really?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eric turned to face us with no cocoa in his hands. "Like, a week after I moved in, I wanted to report my bike as stolen, and they told me I probably lost it and should go find it instead of bothering them."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I raised my eyebrows. "That's strange." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nodded, but then cocked his head to the side. "Well, I mean, I found the bike later, so whatever. But then mum wanted to call the police with a noise complaint when some drunk guys were messing around in the streets and they didn't come either."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I let out a prolonged hum, not sure what to make out of it. I was still groggy with sleep, and some realization. It almost felt like there was something important that I had to ask Sunwoo about, or maybe ask Eric about? Yet, I couldn't recall anything, and blamed the strange feeling on the bad dream I woke up from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What about Jeff?" Sunwoo asked, and I opened my eyes wider. "Has he ever had problems with the police?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eric wondered for a while before shaking his head. "I don't think so. He even said that the new cops must be useless if they don't want to help a woman in need."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That statement made me suspicious, but I wasn't quite ready to form any theories just yet, so I stayed silent and let the topic roll over. Just a few minutes later we were all eating breakfast, discussing our plans, talking about things that didn't include mysterious disappearances and a dysfunctional police force.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The topic seemed to pass, at least until I got upstairs together with Sunwoo, ready to change my clothes and get started on some editing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I can't fucking believe this," Sunwoo sighed heavily as soon as the door was closed behind him. "How come the police are so flippant? Are they like that in every small town?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No idea. I think it's bullshit, too." I didn't know how to console him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's just making me so..." He cut himself off and shook his head before continuing. "Do you wanna go into town today?" </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not really," I answered truthfully. "I want to start going through the things we've grabbed."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Great," Sunwoo's smile was resolute and serious. "Because I wanna start looking for Younghoon's family."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I almost felt embarrassed that I didn't think to do that, myself, but then again, I knew I would be able to rely on Sunwoo with that. He had this drive for helping people, doing the right thing, and my role was just making sure that he can accomplish his goals smoothly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Perfect," I gave him a small peck on the cheek. "If the police won't do it, we will."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guest bedroom we were assigned was honestly more like a guest suite. Divided with a large bookshelf, the huge room was divided into  a bedroom section, and had a section with a sofa, two tables and a few chairs, and we would take up almost all of that space for filming. With the nice walls we didn't need a backdrop, but a corner of the room was occupied with box lights, the coffee table by the sofa was almost always reserved for our laptops, and the table was what I bashed my head against when the editing or exporting wasn't going well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As of today, however, the entire table was turned into a gallery of artifacts, and we have put almost everything we found in that forest bunker on it. Eric was yet to see the full extent of just how much we grabbed, but we didn't think he'd be too concerned. If anything, curious, we told ourselves and continued photographing every single item we laid out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The box Sunwoo grabbed from the desk was wooden, simple with no ornate engravings, wider than it was taller, and looked sort of old. It was locked with a small keyhole visible in the front, and for that reason alone I thought it was one of the most interesting items in the batch we got. Unfortunately, all I could do without destroying it was take several pictures and stare at it in frustration.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The characteristic blue hoodie was next. I inspected it closely, but found absolutely nothing interesting about it. It smelled of sea salt, and faintly of old wood or perhaps like an old cellar, but it wasn't wet or musty. There were no bloodstains either, no tears, absolutely nothing suspicious, and I left it alone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After those two disappointing items Sunwoo left. Sorting through the papers was a tedious job, and I understood it when he announced he needed a nap and a break, preferably with a controller and next to Eric. He even went as far as to apologize for leaving me alone with the work, but I didn't mind. I liked the space and the focus.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I sat down alone to get a look at the stash of papers, and once I started working on it, I sank quite a lot of time into them. There were handwritten notes as well as printed out documents, but the majority of the stack was just photocopies of different newspapers, some with a particular article circled in, and some with absolutely nothing pointed out in them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All of the newspapers were released in the past few years, at least the ones that had the front pages seemed to be, the others looked to be from a similar time frame if the graphic design and content was anything to judge by. It was hard to pick out what those newspaper pages had in common, and as I skimmed the titles, I only grew more and more confused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Youth Orchestra Plays Despite The Storm, Animal Shelter Begs For Donations, County Legislation Might Affect The Island, local newspapers as well as regional ones, one or two photocopies of nationwide magazines complete with now black and white advertisements. Pages filled with tiny gossip columns and big front page news. The only common denominator I could find was with the circled-in articles. They were all obituaries or job offers, though what connected them, I wasn't immediately sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Were they all Younghoon's prints? Were they all things that he considered important, wanted to stash away, wanted to keep for himself? Or was this just some paranoid madman's collection, or perhaps even a secret stash of some hobbyist seeking innocent fun? On one hand, Younghoon was stated to be acting suspiciously before his disappearance, going on long hikes, showing up at the local library and sticking there until late. On the other, there was no real evidence to prove that, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It felt like several hours had passed before I finally got to the photos. Not one of them was an inkjet print, the vast majority were printed on photographic paper, and the rest were captured on instant film or on polaroids. It made sense, considering that together with them I found an analog camera, the same that Younghoon seemed to use, and I immediately assumed they must have been all taken by Younghoon. I quickly came to a different realization, though, when I encountered some old ones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They all seemed to depict very similar themes. It was all landscapes, mostly of the sea and the beach, sometimes of the forest. I wasn't absolutely sure, but judging by the rocks and boulders, and the black sand, they all seemed to be taken in the general area of the island. I couldn't recognize any of the places on the pictures so I wasn't able to confirm anything with certainty, but that didn't mean much either considering how I wasn't too familiar with the area. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were two photos that I recognized, though, and they depicted the forest next to the water plant. I was sure, because I could easily recall the cracked cement parking, where just the other day I had parked my own car.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Someone knocked at the door, and then entered without waiting for my answer. Fortunately, it was just Sunwoo, not someone who was going to ask me uncomfortable questions like 'what is all of this stuff' and 'why don't you paint mystery mobile on the side of your car since you think you're scooby doo and his gang'.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I have good news," he said, holding the open laptop clumsily in one hand and closing the door behind himself with the other.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell me," I abandoned the photographs immediately.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo scooted some of the papers over to put his laptop on the table and show me what he's talking about. "I found Younghoon's parents on facebook. And then, thanks, capitalism, I found this." He showed me a page detailing their names as well as their address and phone number.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is perfect. Let's call them." I was reaching for my phone when Sunwoo got his out first. He input the number and dialed it without a second of hesitation, and put it on loudspeaker.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One ring. Two. Three. My heart beat faster with every ring, and I tried to psych myself up, order my thoughts, decide on what to say. Then the fourth and fifth rings cut through the air, and then the call disconnected, and I sighed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Try again?" I suggested and Sunwoo did just that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Again, the call went unanswered, and I couldn't  find it in me to be shocked. "Of course they aren't picking up. Of course."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I mean, I did half-doxx them, they're right to not answer an unknown number."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's not doxxing if we don't have malicious intent," I waved him off. "What about their address? Do we just pay them a visit?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo looked a little embarrassed when he answered. "I actually looked it up before I came here. It's listed for sale right now with some company, so no luck there. I think calling their real estate agent for personal info would be too much."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, no, that'd be a bit too much." I sighed, and so did Sunwoo, and I just stared at the computer screen for a moment. "So what now?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think we need to keep trying," there was hesitation in Sunwoo's voice. "We can't pay them a visit, but we can't just let go like this. Maybe they'll pick up if we call enough times."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Text them?" I suggested, and Sunwoo nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah. But what do we say?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That wasn't a question I ever thought I'd have to try and answer. How do you write a text like this?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hello Mr and Mrs Kim, I have recently stumbled across information that can shed a new light on the case of your missing son?" That was my best try, and I agonized over the word choice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo actually pulled his phone out and typed out what I told him. "Please contact me?" He tried, and I nodded at that, and I watched him press send.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"And now we wait," I stared at the cold, dead screen of Sunwoo's smartphone, hoping that it's going to suddenly light up with a call. It didn't, for several long seconds, and Sunwoo sighed. He turned the volume up loud before putting his phone away, and I knew he was just as hopeful to get a quick response as I was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Did you find anything interesting?" Sunwoo tried to change the subject and grabbed some of the papers from the table.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Just these," I reached for the photos, and tried to pick out the ones that looked the most familiar to me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most of the photos were either blurred, or weren't taken in great light. I almost wondered why Younghoon had them developed when they didn't have much artistic value. It was just photos of rocks jutting out from the sea, of the shoreline, of foggy, rocky beaches. One of them depicted a dock with a beaten up motor boat moored at it, absolutely nothing of notion about the boat or the dock, but a very interesting choice of composition to the photograph, where the pier and the boat barely occupied one fifth of the photo, and the expanse of the sea was taking up most of it. I kept trying to find something else in the background, maybe something I was missing, but it was just a photo of the sea waves and a vast nothingness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Look at those two," Sunwoo grabbed two of the prints and put them side by side. "Isn't this the same rock? See this sharp part over here?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a while of looking back and forth, I had to admit it did seem that we were looking at photos of the same rock but from two different sides. "Do you think it's important?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't know," furrowing his brows, Sunwoo tried to think. "Are there more photos like this?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Maybe? There's a fuckton of them," I gestured to the stack. Really, there must have been at least seventy, and Sunwoo sighed at the sight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Let's try to see if we find any more repeats like that." He sorted through a few photos quickly and then grabbed the ones taken at the water plant. "Those two though. Jeez."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," I could understand what Sunwoo meant perfectly, even though he didn't use many words to describe his feelings. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was proof that Younghoon was still alive after his appearance at the water plant. It was proof that he was well enough to develop the photos, print them out, and sure, maybe in theory he could have taken identical photos from the same corner a few days before that, developed them, stashed them, and then taken identical ones at the day of his disappearance, but that didn't seem very likely to me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Didn't we take a video from the same angle?" I remembered suddenly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Holy shit, I think we did." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Do you think I should compare them in the video?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo nodded enthusiastically. "Do it, yes. We can show people why we think it's so important, these photos, that hoodie."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You know," I hesitated before speaking, but then I grabbed Sunwoo's hand, and the words came out of my mouth easily. "This is going to be the biggest video we've ever done. And not just because of the clickbait or the story or whatever. We're showing actual proof."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could see in Sunwoo's eyes that he agreed, that he thought the same thing. It was almost like he was overcome by nostalgia, or some other, melancholic feeling. He squeezed my hand back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"We're basically posting evidence on YouTube," I've barely ever seen him look as serious as in that moment. "This is important. Like, what if someone sees this video and remembers something more, some clues? What if..." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn't finish, but I could guess what he's thinking. 'What if he's alive? What if we help find him?' I didn't want to go down that path of thoughts. It was dangerous for many reasons. After all, we couldn't even be sure we found anything of significance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I think I should upload pics of the stuff we found to YouTube, too. If we're posting evidence, we might go the whole mile."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You're right." Only when Sunwoo laced out fingers together did I remember we were still holding hands. "Let's do this."</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>At the beginning of the summer break, the three of us, me, Sunwoo and Eric, would hang out together non stop when we weren't filming, to the point where we tried to get Eric to feature in one of our videos. Despite the town not having many bars or restaurants, we'd always find something to do, a beach to hang out at, or a game to play together. After the first week and a half, though, the excitement died down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wondered briefly if the way we only hung out during breakfast and sometimes dinner, and perhaps once outing a week was a burnout from the few days we spent joined at the hip, or if it was an effect of the weird aura looming over me and Sunwoo from the Younghoon case.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, we ended up telling Eric about everything, or, well, almost everything. He would have found out about it from the YouTube channel anyway, and we weren't going to single him out and keep him in the dark. Plus, there was something we were hoping we could help us out with.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Woah, I haven’t seen that many printed photos since, like, forever,” he said as soon as he was faced with our stash.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was something I only thought about before, but never voiced this out loud. “Yeah, it’s kinda weird, but we only have traditional photos, an analog camera with a film and camcorders. It’s like this dude stopped following technology after we hit a new millennium.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought he disappeared last year? How come the photos are all old?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He did,” Sunwoo nodded from the other side of the table. “The pictures aren’t actually old.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Except for this one,” I added, and pointed to one of the few left scattered across the table. Sunwoo grabbed it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was visibly older and slightly yellowed, and the edges of it were in less than pristine condition. It depicted the lighthouse, assumedly in its former glory, painted a striped pattern, as opposed to the navy blue we saw when first sight-seeing across the island.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, except for this one, it’s an outlier,” he put the photo to the side, safely, and instead focused on grabbing the selected pictures we agreed we wanted to show Eric.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So he just took analog pictures, huh?” Eric furrowed his brows. “Weird.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo shrugged as he handed Eric the stack of photographs.  “Maybe. As far as we know, he wasn’t an anti-technology freak.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Must have been really artistic, then,” was Eric’s conclusion before he started sorting through the photos.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We think it’s from around the island. It makes sense,” I explained to him again, and fought the urge to hold my breath as Eric furrowed his brows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He spent a few seconds on each photo, looking carefully, and I could see Sunwoo lean in nervously, trying to look over Eric’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Eric’s expression. I was sure I must have looked similar, all tense and perched on the edge of my chair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, sorry, guys," Eric finally shook his head and handed the stack back to Sunwoo. "Nothing here looks familiar."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I fought the urge to groan out loud. "Well, I mean, you've only lived here for a few months so I wouldn't think you'd like, guess everything."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's fine," Sunwoo patted Eric on the back and then rubbed his cheeks playfully when the younger pouted. "You're not google map, I get it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I really thought- I really- Stop!" Eric batted Sunwoo's hands away and instead held them close to his chest in a weird hug. "I really thought I'd recognize something."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I shrugged. "It's fine. It's not that big of a deal anyway."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah," Sunwoo agreed with me, and I was sure he'd wave a hand dismissively if his hands weren't in Eric's grasp. "Do you wanna watch a movie later?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The topic changed smoothly, and of course, Eric wanted to hang out, watch a movie, move from the armchair in front of his PC to the sofa downstairs. Of course, his mum would be gone, and his stepdad would be gone, too, so we would have the whole big room for ourselves, he promised.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We agreed on a marvel movie. I almost insisted on a horror, but Sunwoo looked like he'd kill me if I tried to pull that. With a resolution to try and make muffins (and not burn them this time) before we sit down to watch the movie, Eric ran off, and both me and Sunwoo allowed our expressions to fall pretty much the second he disappeared.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Fuck," he said, and I nodded. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well. Here goes that." I sighed, and remembered the other thing I wanted to ask Sunwoo about. "Any success with the..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo shook his head. "Not yet. I'm gonna call later again today."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was frustrating, beyond frustrating, how the immediate family of Younghoon was refusing to contact us back despite the effort we’ve put into contacting them. It was even more frustrating how there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. I was at a loss of words, so I just sighed and nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm gonna go take a walk, I’ll be back in like, an hour," Sunwoo’s eyes were drilling into the distance through the window. Before he teared his eyes away from the coastline and left, I pulled him into a tight embrace.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>For a second, everything felt good. Sunwoo had this ability, and I believed it to be magic, to just make everything seem alright, even if he himself was on edge. If what he told me about myself was any truth, then he felt that way about me, too, and I hoped that just for a second he might feel good, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, sunwoo sighed, and I sighed too, and we let go.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Stay safe," I pecked him on the corner of his mouth before going back into our shared bedroom and back to my project.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I made myself as comfortable as I possibly could in the mess of cables that surrounded me and the table. Things would have probably been easier had I had the access to my university's equipment, but I didn't, and I was lucky to find the right combination of plugs and adapters that made it possible for me to download the footage from the cassettes onto my laptop as well as still have our regular camera connected, and I didn't want to jinx that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The work was supposed to be easy. I was supposed to upload the footage, go through it, pick out the scariest shots. Incorporate them into our video, something along the lines of 'FOUND FOOTAGE FROM A MISSING PERSON? [NOT CLICKBAIT]', write the script for the dialogue. Let Sunwoo read it into the microphone in a low voice. It should have been easy work. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Most of the clips, at least the ones that I had managed to download onto my laptop easily, were very similar to the photos. It was just sea, beaches and docks and piers, and sometimes rocks or trees. Out of the two dozen or so tapes I found, three were timelapses of the sea at night, full three hours of video, and I refused to download those heavy, heavy files onto my already overloaded hard drive. The rest, though, were of more reasonable length, and I was halfway through filing and naming them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a few hours of work I already had two folders, one named “literally just clips of the sea” full of exactly that, and another one called “questionable”. While clips of the sea very boring, static shots or pans of, well, the sea, or sometimes a closeup of a rock that particularly interested Younghoon, “questionable” was where I thrived.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The only video in the ‘questionable’ folder was four minutes long. It started out as just another clip of the sea taken from somewhere high up, Younghoon zooming to get a better shot of the waves, but then the clip ended abruptly, replaced by a dark, shaky shot of the rocky beach. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Younghoon’s heavy breathing was clearly audible over the crashing of waves. He was running, and with how sharply he kept turning around, I assumed he must have been scared of something, but I couldn’t see anything warranting that reaction. It was so dark that when he panned the camera into the distance, I could hardly make out the shapes of the waves in the distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, for the first time, I heard Younghoon’s voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Plugs aren’t working. I saw it, that was enough.” As he said it, he pointed to the distance, a shaky, pale hand with a bandaged wrist. The video cut shortly after that, leaving me with nothing more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It should have been easy to cut that clip out and fit it into the spooky narrative. Yet, instead of doing that and moving on, instead of editing the video and moving on, I chose to get hung up on the few words he said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>What kind of plugs was he trying to use, why weren’t they working? What were they against? What was the ‘it’ in question? It was enough to cause what exactly? The thoughts whirred in my mind and made me almost dizzy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Could this have been the key to his disappearance?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I separated the entire clip of Younghoon running from the more peaceful part of the video, and began dissecting it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>First, I slowed it down, then I tried balancing the gamma, correcting the contrast. It didn’t help much, though, the old camcorder barely recording anything more than pitch black darkness of the distance. It frustrated me to no end, knowing that if only Younghoon had chosen a more modern medium, I likely would have been able to pick something up. Still, I tried my best, playing the clip over and over, and seeing which effect will make a difference.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Younghoon’s voice was deep and mechanical when slowed down, as anyone else’s would have been. After a while, I could remember the oscillation of the distorted sound waves almost perfectly, and after another, I forgot it was words that he was saying, not just robotic noises.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nothing cut through the waves, either. Even though I was much better with sound editing than I was with videos, I couldn’t squeeze anything out from the audio track. No footsteps other than Younghoon’s, no splashes other than what could feasibly be the sea. No screams, squeaks, nothing. It almost made no sense for the tape to be that clean when Younghoon’s shaky voice told me I’m supposed to be seeing something, that he saw something, that there should be more.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Plugs aren’t working,” he said again through my headphones. I paused the video right there, and frame by frame watched him raise his hand, watched him point somewhere.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I saw it, that was enough,” he added, and I leaned even more closely to the screen, to the waves and darkness that was now gray and grainy with how desperately I tried to enhance it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I saw it,” the camera was steady, and his hand trembled after that part. I slowed it down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was pointing slightly to his left, almost as if outside of the view of the camera, which honestly I suspected to be the case. If i just looked closely enough, though, I thought. Maybe there’s something there that’s just barely in the shot?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I played the video again, in slow motion, and Younghoon’s words became intangible, but I could almost swear there was something in the far left corner, at the edge of the screen, that looked less like a reflection of the moon against a wave, and more like a static shape.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Almost like a long finger, I thought, except to be a finger it’d have to belong to someone floating above the sea, and there was no way Younghoon would have missed a shot like that, I thought. Maybe like a sliver of someone’s forehead, then, peeking out  from between hair, I wondered, and played the clip again, slowly, even more slowly, maybe if I tried it frame by frame...</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The light got turned on and it almost made me jump.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's so fucking dark in here, you'll hurt your eyes," Sunwoo scolded me with a laugh. I stared at him in silence. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I didn't even notice," I finally found some words. "Thanks."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Are you still editing?" He was rightfully concerned, since I didn't usually like to be plastered to my computer screen for longer than necessary, and if it was dark, I must have been going at it for quite a few hours. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Just going through some footage," I stretched, and Sunwoo sent me an endeared smile. It felt good to look at something living. something breathing and loving and unpredictable, unlike a video that stays the same no matter how many times you play it. "How was your walk?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Good," his expression almost faltered, and then he put a hand on his stomach. "I'm starving. Come on, let's raid mister Jeff's pantry."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo's extended hand begged me to grab it, so I did, and I peeled myself off from the computer, but not before making absolutely sure I saved all of the progress and all of the files. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As we left for downstairs, I briefly wondered whether I should ask Sunwoo to look at the footage with me, to see if he can spot the same person in the background, but it seemed wrong to do that when I had no proof, no screenshot. It would only scare Sunwoo, I thought, and that was the antithesis of my life's purpose, I thought.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~ ~ ~ ~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After familiarizing myself with the videos at least briefly, the photographs Younghoon took and developed started making more sense. They were almost always things he had filmed as well, but while his videos focused on the sea and the waves, the photographs seemed to catch the environment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The few pictures that actually depicted recognizable things, like one pier, a very characteristic small island with two trees, the lighthouse, I was able to locate all those with just a little bit of help from google maps. That together with recognizing more perishable things, a fallen tree, an oddly shaped bush, allowed me to match up a few videos to specific photos.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At first it seemed that younghoon must have been carrying both the camcorder and the camera with him wherever he went, but after I looked more attentively, I noticed differences in lighting and shadows that assured me the photos were not taken at the same time as the videos. It meant that Younghoon was returning to the same locations many times, and I instantly wondered if there were certain ones that were visited more often.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Almost all of the shots were depicting just waves, though. Just the sea, moving in perfectly normal, boring ways, just the coasts and the shorelines. It was almost impossible for me to recognize anything above the small couple of pairs that had obvious landmarks. The gratuitous shots of rocks, sea and the sky all looked the same to me </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was frustrating, almost as frustrating as looking through the newspapers and trying to make sense of them. I was almost considering going to the library and confronting the rude, mean librarian from before to ask her if she had any recollection of some dude making copies upon copies of old newspapers, when Sunwoo finally broke the heavy silence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't you think it's odd?" Sunwoo asked me from above his computer. "How he's presumed dead."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a second of thinking I figured he must have been talking about Younghoon. "Not really. Why?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"The police say he must have drowned, but everyone in the town takes such pride in how no one drowns around here, how the waters are so safe."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had to give the issue a thought. Now that Sunwoo pointed it out, it did seem a little odd, but then again, was there a better explanation? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I mean, one person a year really isn't a lot of drowning deaths for a seaside town, I guess."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah, but they talk like the sea is the safest haven, like nothing bad can happen to you if you've got as much as one toe in the water."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't know," I shrugged. I really had no answers, and Sunwoo's way of thinking was worryingly reasonable. "Denial?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo sighed, and I sighed with him. "I don't think it's just that."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was nothing left for me to say, but I couldn't bring myself to go back to the pile of papers. The thought bounced around in my head and demanded an explanation. Why was Younghoon presumed drowned, when no one seemed to drown around here, ever? Why was his body not found if the waters were considered peaceful and friendly? What made him special?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>If I had the answer, I thought, I would be able to solve the entire mystery. To get all of the explanations, perhaps for everything. Yet, the footage gave me nothing, and no matter how many times I booted up the camcorder and stared into the old viewfinder, I couldn’t see anything that would get me closer to the resolution.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I walked downstairs fully experiencing to see Eric on the couch, and was shockingly disappointed. I almost thought about calling him, but something told me that if he wasn’t downstairs, playing on his switch, then he was probably very sick of the switch, and wouldn’t want to come down and play with me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had just been beginning to get sick of playing Super Smash Bros against AI when I heard some rustling noise behind me. At this time of the evening I expected it to be either Eric’s stepdad or Eric, and I briefly wondered if I should pretend I can't hear anything in order to avoid having to talk to Jeff, but the possibility of getting to play with Eric won.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I paused the game and turned around, only to see Sunwoo there in the hallway, paused mid-motion of putting on a jacket.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Where are you going?” I asked. I didn’t mean for my voice to sound as biting as it did, and I hated it when Sunwoo flinched a little. He gave me a frightened look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“To the beach,” he said simply, and then avoided my gaze.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The nearest beach is like twenty minutes away from here,” I wasn’t buying what he was selling. “Sunwoo, it’s the middle of the night, why are you sneaking out?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sat down with a heavy exhale, not even bothering to take off the rain jacket. “I’m sorry, I should have just told you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, maybe, but…” I felt like it would be physically taxing to stay mad at Sunwoo when he looked that sad and scared. I sat down next to him and grabbed his hand. “What’s going on?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Sunwoo told me with a bleak expression, and then cleared his throat. “I just. I can’t sleep and then I just keep wanting to go see the sea. Is that weird? I think that’s weird.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I kissed Sunwoo’s knuckles gently, unsure what to say, wanting to just let him speak more. As I did that, I caught a glimpse of the pale blister on his wrist. It didn’t seem like it went down at all, but it also didn’t grow worse, and I decided not to comment. I simply kissed the skin next to it, and remained silent.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It makes me feel better, you know? Just staring into the waves. It’s calming.” His pouty lips trembled and I fought the urge to kiss that away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If it helps you sleep better…” I started, and Sunwoo huffed bitterly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s call it that.” Finally, he looked at me, less scared but more bitter. I hated that expression on him. “Wanna go with me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hm?” I was too focused on hating the world for making Sunwoo upset to realize what’s being said to me. “I mean, I guess we could.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You could give me a lift so I wouldn’t have to take a twenty minute hike.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ve convinced me,” I answered, and smiled at Sunwoo in an attempt to make him smile back. He didn’t, but the corner of his mouth twitched, and that was enough of a success for me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It astounded me every time, just how short and easy the drive to the beach was. Just a couple of minutes in the car, and I was pulling up in the parking lot, sea salt in the air, the open expanse of the endless water in front of me. It was large, so much larger than anything man made could ever be, and it was so, so easy to travel to. Somehow, that seemed wrong. It seemed more correct to be forced away from that bottomless, dark pit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And yet, when our shoes sank into the sand as we approached the waves, the sea didn't feel overwhelming. It felt just, in the same time the passing of time is fair and the changing seasons are merciful. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't you feel like if you look hard enough, you'll see something?" Sunwoo broke the silence. I didn't have half the mind to look at him, and instead focused on the waves, and on his words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yeah." </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I keep thinking that. There might be something in the distance, you know?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Like a ghost?" I mocked, and then wanted to kick myself for it. Maybe usually it was a good way to lighten the mood, but it certainly wouldn't be well received right about now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo just sighed in response. "Maybe. I don't even know anymore."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Ghosts don't exist, Sunwoo." I looked back at him. He didn't look scared, just tired.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo shook his head, bitterness warping his features. "I know, but everything just feels so strange, just so wrong..."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I grabbed his hand and laced our fingers together. I didn't know how to tell him that there's nothing to be afraid of in a way that wouldn't seem like I'm belittling him or dismissing him, so I just stayed quiet. He fell quiet, too, and we just stood there, hand in hand, looking into the sea.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The street lamps illuminating the walkway next to the beach were by far not enough to reach the beach. Instead, we had to rely on the moon and the stars, and the light pollution. It was enough though, once my eyes grew used to the darkness surrounding us; I found it easy to pick up details of Sunwoo's face, the nuanced shapes of the rocks under our feet, and even some of the patterns in the swirling water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I closed my eyes for a second, and let myself enjoy the sounds around me. The slow sloshing, the louder splashes in the distance. The barely audible sound of Sunwoo’s breathing. The eerie, far away howling of the wind, high pitched and delicate, almost like a song. It was entrancing, calming in a way that could easily be unsettling, and I could not put my finger on where the distinction ran. It made me want to open my eyes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The waves were still there. In some places, they seemed to be perfectly rhythmic, slow and steady like the beating of a heart. In other places, I could swear they were pure chaos, crashing into each other erratically, as if they were too young and too rowdy to be orderly and smooth over the coast evenly. Parts of the sea seemed so low, so flat, almost shallow, and then other parts grew over the horizon, swallowed it, and threatened to swallow me, too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They seemed to sing, almost, or perhaps roar in cacophony, but in that second, when I looked into the depths, it felt almost like the sea had a voice, and I could hear it. At that moment, Iunderstood why Sunwoo felt like he needed to be by the sea. There was a magnetism to it, something pulling me, something calling me to it, causing my eyes to blur and my head to swim.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I looked at the big waves more intently instead of letting my eyes wander to them. They seemed so tall in the pale moonlight, the proof of the force of nature, almost indistinguishable from the night sea. Maybe it was proof of my worsening eyesight, or maybe it was just an accidental trick of lighting, but they seemed to grow and grow infinitely, pulsing up and down but always ultimately rising taller.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo squeezed my hand tight and let out a small gasp of terror.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What the fuck is happening?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wasn't sure what he's talking about. I could hardly peel my eyes away from the mesmerizing visual of unreal, tall waves. I had to angle my head backwards to look at it better.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Changmin, the water, the water is rising," Sunwoo started to pull me back.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What?" I finally spared him a glance. He was terrified.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why is the water rising like this? Look," he pointed to the shore at our feet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The calm, relaxed waves weren't hitting the shore anymore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some words about tsunami warnings and how the sea pulls back before it crashes passed through my mind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Fuck," I tightened my grip on Sunwoo and started moving backwards. "This might be dangerous."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wanted to run, but Sunwoo kept a slow pace, and I couldn't really pull him. He wouldn't let go of my hand, either.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sunwoo, run!" I tried to reason, but he didn't listen to me. He pointed to the shore again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Look, watch the waves, look," he just gasped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I knew I should’ve pulled him more strongly and run, that was the logical thing to do, but instead, I looked down and spared a glance at the sea. At first, I didn't understand what he could mean, and then I took another step backwards. And the sea followed me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The exact distance that I moved back, the waves moved in, and when I froze mid-step, the waves stopped, too. I've never seen that before in my entire life, a motionless sea wave, neither receding nor rushing forwards, and the spare second felt like a lifetime of wrong, of denied, of something so vile my body wanted to curl up and die.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I took a couple of steps backwards, pulling Sunwoo with me, and the waves moved again to follow me. A part of me wanted to scream. The other part of me wanted to fight, and that's what I did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I took a step forward, and the sea receded. When I looked up, the monumentally tall wave was still there, towering over the shore like a massive building, like a massive tree. If it crashed, it would wash the entire shore up until the building line, I reckoned, and it was following the two of us. Only one solution made sense to me. I snuck my hand out of Sunwoo's hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With just a few strides, I was right at the edge of water, almost as if I outsmarted it, outran it. Instead of pulling back again, the water smoothed over, the enormous wave disappeared, the entire surface of the sea calmed down and licked the sole of my shoe in what could arguably be the most boring movement ever. There was no loud crash, no flood across the beach, nothing that could even point to water ever behaving out of norm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I stared at my shoes, and water licked them again. I could feel the fabric becoming wet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Sunwoo gasped behind me. “No, no, no.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the fuck was that?” I still couldn’t peel my eyes away from the ocean, but I had to respond.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You saw it too, right? All of it?” He grabbed my arm and turned me towards him, his fingers digging into my flesh. “You saw that fucking wave, didn’t you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” I admitted. “I have no idea what that was, but yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo finally let go of my arm with a loud groan. “Why do we fucking record everything, just not the shit that matters?” He was holding his head like he wanted to pull at his own hair, but stopped himself, just barely.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I finally moved away from the sea, one of my shoes soaked, the other barely splashed. Had I not been so shaken, I would have been annoyed at my own stupidity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What fucking kind of meteorological…” It was hard to find words to even try and categorize the strange water phenomenon that just transpired. “A fucking receeding tsunami, what the hell.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Changmin, I don’t think,” the words came out almost like a sob, and then Sunwoo took a deep breath and tried to recenter himself. “Please, can we go? We need to go.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I gave the sea one last, long look. It was perfectly normal, just as rhythmic and chaotic as it would be on any other day. Just as deep. Just as magnetizing, though it no longer seemed to sing to me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Let’s go,” I cocked my head, and made a hasty way towards the car. Sunwoo almost ran.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He only spoke again when the doors to the car were closed and locked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Changmin, I don’t think this is normal.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obviously,” I started the engine, but Sunwoo’s hand on mine stopped me from grabbing the steering wheel and driving away. “That was some crazy weather stuff.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo’s pupils shook for a few seconds before he finally spoke his mind. “I don’t think it’s just weather.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you mean?” I felt my brows furrowing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think this is something more, something… Paranormal.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I took a deep sigh and before I even spoke one word, Sunwoo already read my mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know what you’re gonna say,” he grabbed my hand tighter. “But this isn’t normal, I keep hearing this singing, and you’ve heard it too, today, too, and now this? Changmin, this entire town feels so wrong, I just don’t think it’s normal, it’s not-” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His breathing was jagged, and I used his pause to take control of the conversation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I agree, this town is creepy, it feels weird, but that’s just that, right? Too many horrors, too much living in a big city.” I wanted to kiss his knuckles again, but with our positions, it was too awkward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t,” Sunwoo couldn’t speak properly. He took a few deep breaths, and I let him calm himself before he continued, didn’t interrupt him this time. Finally, he collected himself enough to speak clearly. “I think we should stop.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop what?” My stomach dropped at these words.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop going down Younghoon’s trail. Nothing good has happened since we started doing that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I couldn’t help but exhale in relief at that, having for a second considered that maybe, perhaps Sunwoo wanted us to stop dating. Not that I thought he had any reasons to, but the paranoia was there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sunwoo, we can’t stop now,” I chased his gaze with mine as I answered. “Look at me, Sunwoo. Look at me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He finally did, and his eyes were less shaky than before. Only slightly, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re not in the best shape today. Whatever that weird weather thing was, it was spooky. You’re scared. You want to stop. But I don’t think you’d say this if you were calm.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How so?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because you said it yourself. If we don’t do this, then no one will. He might be alive, Sunwoo. And if we don’t try to find him, who will?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right,” Suwnoo nodded and bit his lip. Usually that action was playful on him, and I hated seeing it as a result of anxiety.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’re gonna go home, we’re gonna go to bed. And then in the morning we’re gonna think again, okay?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Right, yeah, okay,” he was nodding again, this time more enthusiastically, pulling his hand away from between mine, gathering himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was listening to my reasoning, and I was more than happy about that. Not only because I knew that if he was any more calm, he would have told me those things himself, but also because if those arguments weren’t working, I wasn’t sure I had many more left.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something in me just desperately wanted to pry Younghoon’s case open. To see more, watch every single piece of evidence, see absolutely everything, and after the events from minutes ago, that curiosity only grew. I wanted the explanation for everything, and I wanted it bad, and had Sunwoo ditched me on that, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to stop going on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Can I kiss you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He barely lifted his eyes to answer. “Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I pressed two kisses to his forehead and one to his cheek, hovering awkwardly over the gear stick, and by the time I was going for the fourth kiss, Sunwoo turned his face towards me and reciprocated softly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m here, yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.” This time when he looked me back in the eye, he seemed to be less lost. A good sign.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The road back home was much, much slower than the road to the beach.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The only type of schedule we’ve had on our YouTube channel was that we uploaded true crime tuesdays on tuesdays. Anything more would be too suffocating, Sunwoo agreed on that with me. Still, I liked to keep the uploads pretty regular, and watched our statistics carefully. Obviously, the best time to upload a video would be the afternoon, when most people have some time off to watch it right away, but with horror videos like ours, a later time worked even better. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With that in mind, I set the video in queue to be posted at 7pm, made sure that the thumbnail was both creepy and aesthetically pleasing, submitted it for monetization, and promptly forgot all about it. I had more important things to do, after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>We barely finished breakfast when Sunwoo announced he’s going to be taking a nap before he starts his day, Eric whined something about playing Apex Legends, and I started spinning a yarn about how I have some work to be done before the YouTube video can go live. It was a white lie, of course. The video was done ages ago and the things I planned on doing had nothing to do with it, and everything with the Younghoon case, and I just so happened to plan on doing them before the upload time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dissecting the clips left by Younghoon always made me feel uneasy. The static shots of the sea were boring and spiritless at first, but the longer I looked into them, the more suspicious they became.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was always something ever so slightly odd about the waves, almost as if they weren’t moving how they should. Every so often, a splash would appear on top of a wave, a patch of seafoam would bubble strangely, a tide would roll over too fast or too slow. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>All of that could perhaps be perfectly explainable by some water current phenomenon, but all I could think about was that one evening at the beach. How I watched a tide rise against me and Sunwoo, how we watched it threaten to crash down on us, and how it never did. How the sea receded and then followed us, how it acted unlike water ever should.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what Younghoon was trying to catch on camera, if he saw that, too. If he was just like us, observing something weird and desperately trying to capture it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still, there was never enough proof. Not one shot from the dozen or so I found showed any activity clearly, I couldn’t get pictures or frames of clearly abnormal swirls or patterns. There was only the unease and the faint shadow of an odd splash in the distance. No matter how many times I’ve replayed those videos, I could never pinpoint one specific frame that would be out of the ordinary enough to warrant my panic.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It reminded me of another clip, one that I’ve discarded when piecing together the YouTube video, one that made my skin crawl just for a second before I ignored the feeling and went back to good old video editing. I put it up in the video editing software.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was one of the videos we've taken of the entrance to the weird bunker, and went over the part at the very beginning again. It was just a few seconds of Sunwoo accidentally panning over the forest, then down onto his legs, then another accidental swipe across the forest as he tried to focus on my legs instead, and then just footage of me stepping down a ladder, and my frankly slightly greasy hair as the center of attention. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Rest of the video didn't interest me. I've already gotten all of the good clips from it, like the one of me going down, of me saying there's nothing interesting. Of Sunwoo descending, all of the flashy clips of the inside of the bunkers. Now, they weren't as the three and a bit seconds of the forest and the distant shoreline behind it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just there, just as the camera was moving quickly, just in a dozen or so frames, I could swear there was someone standing there, between the trees.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I could see them. Standard height, standard, slim posture. Just a dark silhouette, barely distinguishable from the trees, but the face and hands were pale enough for me to be able to tell them apart.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Just under half a millisecond. Just twelve, maybe thirteen frames. I went through them, one by one, all of them smudged, all of them blurry. Not one of them showing the shadowy figure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I exported the frames into a photo editing software. Every single one of them, at the highest possible quality. I enhanced the view. I raised the saturation. I raised the contrast. I sharpened and smoothed and dodged and still, not one of them, not a single one showed the figure that I could swear was there in the video.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At full speed, in the split second, the person was clearly there, standing right next to this plain, oh so plain tree, the diameter of which I felt like I could measure with my eyes. When I played it at half speed, the figure was there, too, harder to catch but it was there. The face and the hands and the dark clothes and all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Why then, why, wasn't I able to see it when I played the video frame by frame?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Frame one. Forest. Nothing interesting. Frame two. The same forest, just a bit blurred. Frames three and four, the same blur, but this time moved to the right, frame five, a jump to the right, less blur, the edge of the tree coming into the view. Frame six. The tree was perfectly in view, and yet I could not locate the pale stain that I could swear was a face. Frame seven, blurred, the tree still in view, no trace of hands. Frame eight, some more motion blur, tree now farther to the right, still nothing. Frame nine. Blurred. Tree. Nothing. Frames ten, eleven, twelve, camera tilting, blur, nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I went through them again. And again. And again. Frame six, the tree, enhanced, color picked at the height at which the person appeared to be. Hardly any difference in the pixels. Frame seven, sharpened, no difference. Frame eight. Nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was just like the clips of the sea all over again, except worse. The sea was only taunting me with it’s motions, strange as they might have seemed, it was still just the sea, but this, this was something tangible. Someone tangible, even. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When I caught myself pulling at my hair so painfully my scalp went a little numb, I realized I’m stuck in an absolutely hopeless loop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was either nothing or everything in these few frames, and I was either mad, or going mad. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>~ ~ ~ ~</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was humbling to see how excited Eric was about the numbers the video was pulling. Not that I wasn’t aware that it was doing exceptionally well, but it was the sort of response me and Sunwoo were both counting on. A couple of dozen thousands of views in the first few hours since the upload was a lot, but a number I was already used to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s so good, holy shit!” Eric was almost jumping up and down on the sofa.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I mean, we’ve got the clickbait,” I reasoned, and Sunwoo rolled his eyes at me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not clickbait if we deliver exactly what we promised in the title.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“True,” I had to agree. After all, the video was exactly what was written on the box. We followed a cold missing person case and found possible new evidence.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eric was furrowing his brows scrolling through his phone, and I felt like I knew what he’s looking at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Please don’t tell me you’re reading the comments,” I almost wanted to grab the phone from him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maybe,” Eric didn’t even try to deny.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo groaned. “Don’t read them, it’s not worth it. It’s fun to read the good ones but then you see one mean one and your day is ruined.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Judging by the way Eric’s frown deepened, Sunwoo hit the jackpot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Give me the phone,” I actually made an attempt to snatch it from Eric, but he moved it out of my reach just in time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just don’t get why people would get mad at you for trying to follow Younghoon’s trail,” he locked the screen and put the phone down, which I was happy about.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They’re allowed to have their own opinions,” Sunwoo didn’t look too convinced about that, but I knew it was how he stopped himself from feeling too hurt about the negativity. “And you’re allowed to not give a shit about them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eric sighed. “That’s smart.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll be smart like this when you go to uni, too,” I joked, and didn’t wait for Eric’s answer. I knew what it was going to be, after all, complaining that he has to wait three more terms and that he wants to go back to Seoul already. Instead, I changed the subject. “I think we should go out and celebrate.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Your treat?” Eric nudged me, and I figured he was just as ready to get his mind off things as I was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure, why not.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I want pizza,” Sunwoo smiled at me from across the sofa. I smiled back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His eyes were tired, but his smile was genuine, and the knowledge that he could still look at me and smile despite the stress of the recent events, it mattered to me much more than the views on the video ever could. It was moments like that that reminded me just how much I loved him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, we should go to the pizza place by the pier, please, it’s got this cheese stuffed crust, Changmin, please?” Eric was half-off the armchair, pulling on my hand and smiling brightly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once again, my heart warmed a little, a knot untied itself a little. It was almost unbelievable just how much energy Eric could exude, and how bright his presence was. I never wanted to stop being his friend, not for one second.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fuck yes for cheese crust,” was all I said instead. I didn’t have to say more, though. I could see it in their faces, they could tell what I was feeling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m starving, let’s go,” Sunwoo announced, and just like that, we got going.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was easy to have fun in their proximity. It was easy to relax inside the pizzeria, especially when none of the windows had any view of the sea. It was easy to just joke around, check our channel for views, to laugh about the next video as if it was going to be just that, just another project, something we’d record and throw away in one week.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I almost allowed myself to think Younghoon’s case was just that. Almost. And then we took a short walk from the pier, towards the lighthouse, the one I’ve complained about before when we just arrived. Eric insisted we go up to it, and I didn’t know how to tell him I don’t want to get close to the sea line. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, I focused on listening to whatever Eric was trying to prove to me, and on watching Sunwoo’s face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s actually really pretty,” Sunwoo muttered, assessing the building up and down. I didn’t understand how he could be so calm near the sea, but I wasn’t about to question his peace. I smiled at him, instead.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It looks much less creepy in real life, I agree,” I laughed and took another good look at the building. Standing at the base, looking up, it made me feel small, but not intimidated. It was just a building, with windows that reflect the sunlight and with cracks in the paint.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Should we take a selfie?” Sunwoo asked, only half-joking, and Eric nodded enthusiastically.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hell yeah, straight to instagram,” he was already taking out his phone and beckoning me closer. “You too, come on!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Of course, I smiled and posed for the camera. Sunwoo started making pouty lips, I started making fun of him, and Eric started making ugly faces, asking us to do the same. When I laughed, my chest felt light, like nothing ever went wrong. Like the sea was never anything more than just waves at the shore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The illusion broke when I looked more closely at the wall behind us, the blue stripe of the edge of the lighthouse’s base a star contrast against the white of the walls. It was familiar, too familiar, and I immediately knew where I'd seen it last.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I took my own phone and started taking pictures of the base of the lighthouse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What are you doing?” Sunwoo asked with a smile and I hated to be the reason to see that smile fade.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think this was on Younghoon’s photos,” I clarified quietly, hoping that Eric won’t overhear. It’s not like he was unaware of how seriously we took our impromptu investigation, but I didn’t want to let him know just how obsessed I was with it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh,” just as I expected, Sunwoo’s smile fell. “Are you sure?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I shook my head. “No, but like, almost sure. The wall pattern seems really familiar.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo just nodded at that and didn’t say anything more as I got further back to get a bigger, wider shot. Unlike Younghoon, I wasn’t limited to my camera’s film, and I could take as many photos as I wanted, so I decided to fill my phone’s memory with different angles of the lighthouse’s base. I had to find the one that matched the photos Younghoon took.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a dock by the lighthouse, small and almost redundant, considering the proximity to the pier. It looked pretty much like every single dock in the area, but I snapped a few pictures of it, anyway. In the distance on the left, there was a cliff building up, and I captured that. To the right, the beach curved away, and I took a photo of that, too. The last thing was the island in the distance, small and shallow, and covered with rocks, and I moved closer to the lighthouse to get a better shot of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I certainly did not expect to almost walk into a man leaning against the side of the lighthouse, but I did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, sorry, sir,” I started, and the man gave me an ugly look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The hell you want, snooping around?” It was only then that I realized just how suspicious I looked, walking around quietly, pointing a camera everywhere.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I moved away from the building until I could see Sunwoo and Eric. They must have heard the conversation happen, because they were already walking in my direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sorry to bother you, sir,” I put my phone away awkwardly. “I just wanted to take a couple of pictures with, uh, with my friends.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eric was the first one to realize what’s going on, and he smiled reassuringly at the guy. “Yeah, sorry, to bother. We’re just hanging around. You know, looking.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man did seem less suspicious of me, but no less unhappy. I wondered if he was perhaps working at the lighthouse, and had any real power that could put us in trouble. “Looking for what?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Looking for mermaids,” Sunwoo joked, and I couldn’t help but to let out a small chuckle. Sure, that was a nice tension relief. The old man didn’t seem amused, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, better stop looking. They’re not very nice.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man’s response surprised me, and for a second I wasn’t sure how to process it. Sunwoo looked just as puzzled as me. “What do you mean?” I asked, finally.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man shook his head, visibly tired. “Fucking mermaids, they call them. Load of bullshit if you ask me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I instantly wished I had my camera out, but I didn’t, and suddenly pulling out my phone to start recording now would have been the most suspicious, conversation-stopping thing I could possibly do. Yet, I knew good material when I heard it, and the man sounded like he had things to say that would be more than perfect for our channel.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?” Sunwoo pried. He must have been thinking the same thing as me.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“People think mermaids are nice, just pretty girls with tits out and fish tails. They’re all across the city,” he nodded towards the general direction of the town centre. “But sirens are anything but nice. Y’all better stop trying to look for them if you don’t want trouble.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I would have thought that Eric would have a better understanding of what’s happening, but he clearly didn’t, judging by his tone. “I thought the mermaids are the symbol of the island?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The old man scoffed. “For sure, sirens are the symbol of the town, alright.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The way he insisted on calling the creatures on the murals and coats of arms sirens instead of mermaids made me perplexed. Why did that matter so much to him? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then why shouldn’t we look for them?” I asked, instead, helping to get some more answers from him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pretty boys like you often go missing around these parts of the island.” His tone was grim, and I felt a shudder run through my body. “I’ve seen one too many young men like you disappear after chasing something they really shouldn’t be chasing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Like Younghoon?” Sunwoo blurted. The man gave him a disgruntled look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s been a year since he’d gone missing, hadn’t it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I nodded. “Yes. Do you keep up?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We think we might have…” Sunwoo started, but Eric gave him a nervous nudge. He just nodded, and continued. “We think we might know what happened to him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t know anything,” the man waved us off, somewhere between annoyed and again, very, very tired. “And you better keep it that way.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you know more?” I couldn't leave the subject alone. “Do you know what happened to him?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man didn’t answer, and instead, took out a pack of cigarettes. We all stood in silence, watching him light one up, take a drag, puff the smoke out into the sky. Watched the smoke dissolve like the seafoam on a shore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You must be around twenty,” it wasn’t a question, just a statement from him. He didn’t give us time to respond. “My son was the same age.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re Younghoon’s father?” Eric couldn’t keep his voice down.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, those folks have long since disappeared.” He paused to take another drag of his cigarette. “Why do you care, anyway?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We want to find out what happened to Younghoon.” I decided to answer truthfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Pray to god you never will,” was all he said on the subject before shaking his head. “You’re not from here, are you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Sunwoo admitted, and Eric cut him off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am,” he had a hardy look in his eye. “I just moved in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then you’re not really from here. You should be extra careful.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wasn’t sure what got under my skin more, the way he seemed to obviously know something but refused to elaborate, or the way he dismissed us, and Eric in particular. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you work in the lighthouse?” I tried not to snap. “Do you know many things about the sea? You seem like you do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He obviously didn’t like my tone of voice. The way he waited a few seconds before answering made me think that perhaps I’ve hit the jackpot. “You think you’re entitled to any information? Get a grip. This isn’t some funny business for outsiders to get involved in.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The talk reminded me of what Eric had to listen to back in the city. It made me grind my teeth. It made me feel powerless.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright. Sure. Sorry for bothering you,” Sunwoo said with a polite smile. I wasn’t sure how he could do that, fully aware that if I attempted to say something similar, I would have been far less nice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Sorry, sir,” Eric added, and I was the last person left who hasn’t turned his back yet, who hasn’t started leaving.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo’s hand on my arm reminded me that perhaps, it’s sometimes best to just let go. I hissed out a half apology through my teeth and turned back on the lighthouse on the coast, and followed the boys back into the land, towards my car, towards Eric’s home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As happy as I was to see Eric’s mum as we arrived, I excused myself and went straight to all of the footage we had from the bunker. It was alright, I told myself, Sunwoo stayed behind to entertain Eric, to do all of the small talk, to be alive and normal. I had some investigating to do.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I easily found the tape I wanted on my PC, the one Younghoon took by the lighthouse. Having been there and having taken many photos, the beach suddenly seemed characteristic and full of personality rather than forgettable. A wooden dock, a huge rock in the distance, a shallow island in close proximity to the rocky coast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took me barely fifteen minutes to find the photos I instantly recalled as soon as I saw the base of the lighthouse. The walls were barely in the shot in a few of them, Younghoon having chosen to instead focus on the coast, as per usual, but there was no mistaking that it was the base of the lighthouse. The white and navy blue contrast was characteristic enough for me to be absolutely sure.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As I sorted through the photos, I found more and more that were obviously taken at the same location. By the end, I didn’t even have to consult my phone and the snaps I took, didn’t have to compare. The coastline was ingrained in my memory. Altogether, I found a dozen, not counting the old photograph that I’ve thrown onto the pile, too, which depicted the lighthouse after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The amount of pictures Younghoon took of that one shore electrified me, and felt like a grand discovery. The obvious next choice was checking the video clips, and of course I did just that. Huddled in front of my laptop, on the sofa, I clicked through them one by one until I found what I was looking for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Four videos. One timelapse, two simple ten minute long shots of the sea, and the one video where I’ve heard Younghoon speak. I’ve dissected it thoroughly before, and was almost inclined to just not care about it anymore, not give it another glance. I opened it up, though, the full, unedited version with the calm shot of the sea, and opened all the other ones as well.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was childishly easy to realize they were all shots of the same place, and I couldn’t believe how on earth I didn’t notice that before. The shallow island was more than characteristic, with the rocks jutting out of it right at the front at recognizable angles. With the timelapse I could understand my own blindness, after all the shot of the island was barely a second long. The other ones, though, were obvious, so obvious that disbelief washed over me when I put the clips next to each other.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rocks looked almost identical, I thought. So did the waves. If I played the videos right, if I matched them up right, they were almost synchronized, despite being taken at different times of the day, of the year, even, in different weathers.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The waves were so similar, though. They felt familiar, the big wave on the left, then the two smaller ones under it. The one that rushed ahead, so full of personality, I could see it everywhere, I could even remember it from the beach trips, it was so eager, so alive. Then, there was the lazy one, rolling through with the seafoam right next to the rocks, and the rocks, well…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rocks looked different in one of the videos.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I paused everything and tore my eyes away from the waves the second I noticed that, and I played just that one video, the pan of the waves, the one that showed the rocky island being different. That showed the deformity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was moving, I realized. It was not a rock that was different next to my lazy wave, that was a person, I could swear, after zooming in, after enhancing. I could see a fluid motion that looked almost, almost like tape distortion, but I knew better. As I slowed the video to go frame by frame, the person disappeared, but it didn’t matter to me. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As I watched I realized that the quick, brave wave was no longer in the picture, instead it rolled behind the lazy one. A second ago I could have sworn I’ve recognized it, my lively, energetic friend, rising and falling through the sea, but my eyes must have deceived me, because when the video slowed down, the wave was no longer there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was behind the rocks, behind the island, and the rocks were back to normal, and when I compared them to the other videos they were all identical again, but the waves moved differently, no matter how many times I zoomed in I could no longer see it, see the personality, see the person next to the rocks, see the swimming, hear the singing…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>My nose touched the screen of my laptop, and caused me to pull away. My eyes were stinging, and as I rubbed them, I wondered if I remembered to blink at all. I felt sick.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I almost felt bad with how fast I snapped the laptop closed, but I was sure it wasn’t going to be damaged beyond a scratch on the front of the case. It didn’t matter to me, though, a scratch on the case was better than having to look at another clip of the sea waves for even a second longer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Several hours have passed since we arrived back, I realized when I checked my phone. That fact hardly surprised me. Whenever I worked on Younghoon’s clips I seemed to lose track of time, as absurd as it was to get that absorbed in something that had to do with video editing. A voice in my head told me that maybe I should be surprised about the passage of time, though. That maybe something was wrong with how quickly it flew. That maybe something was wrong with how desperately I wanted to see something in the clips, in the waves, to see what Younghoon saw.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I silenced that voice. It didn’t help me look for proof, for clues, it didn’t help me focus on finding more evidence. It only made me afraid.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I turned on all of the lights in the room before sitting down next to the pile of paper on the table, away from the laptop, from the sofa. Sorting through things I could touch was easy. It didn’t hurt my eyes, it hid no secrets. I went with it for a while. The change of pace was good, and as I sorted, some things came to my attention.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When I went downstairs to find Sunwoo, I found him next to Eric, eating popcorn, watching some romantic comedy that frankly looked kind of boring. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s up?” I tousled Eric’s hair, and he batted my hand away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Not now,” he was engrossed in whatever was happening on the screen, and I would maybe feel bad for questioning his movie taste if I didn’t already know it’s shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Out from your hidey hole? Wanna grab dinner?” Sunwoo stretched a hand out in my direction, and I grabbed it, careful to avoid the bandaid over his blister.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mention of food did make me realize I am indeed hungry, but that could wait, I thought. “I’m good.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wanna watch with us?” With the way Sunwoo smiled at me, he must have already been able to tell that no, I don’t really want to watch Jessica Alba in the big city.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Come with me upstairs,” I beckoned Sunwoo, and he didn’t look too happy to obey. He did, though, and told Eric not to pause, that he knows what’s gonna happen anyway. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve been thinking,” I started when the door was securely closed behind us and I was down on the sofa.  “The newspapers must have something in common, right? And what does Younghoon film? The sea. It’s always the sea. All of these have to do with the sea in some form, or the water, or fishing. Something.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo grabbed the pile of copies of newspapers that I arranged on the table. I gave him a second to look over them before continuing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He didn’t really make this easy but once you realize you’re looking for something that has to do with the water, it’s everywhere.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And this one?” Sunwoo pointed one page in my direction. It had a job offer circled in with a blue pen. It was someone looking for interns in their car shop.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not absolutely sure,” I had to admit. “On the page there’s a weather report, though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Could be a coincidence,” Sunwoo muttered, and I wanted to entertain that thought, but that was beside the point.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Listen, I just. I’m sure Younghoon was obsessed with the water. With the sea.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hesitation warped Sunwoo’s features, but I could tell he wasn’t questioning my words. “Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So whatever this is, if we want to find out more, we need to figure out what he was looking for.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And so far our best shot was that guy by the lighthouse.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo didn’t answer me, not even with a half hearted mutter. It was only then that I finally looked up at him, not just briefly passed my gaze but properly looked, and when I did, all of the thoughts about the case stopped mattering.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead of curling up next to me comfortably, he curled into himself, hugging his legs like a ball of misery. His eyes were distant. He was tired, so, so tired. My hand was on his before I could even think about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s happening?” I asked, as if this was something new, something shocking, as if I haven't seen Sunwoo become more and more withdrawn over the last few days.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can’t sleep,” he half whispered, half muttered. “I keep having nightmares.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Again?” I asked, and Sunwoo shook his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s still the same thing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last time Sunwoo told me he can’t sleep felt like weeks ago, even though I knew that much time couldn’t have passed. I frowned, unsure what to make of it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Even since we found that hole, all of Younghoon’s things, I keep having these dreams,” he started, and then trailed off, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, letting go of my hold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is it about Younghoon?” I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time Sunwoo was bothered about one of our cases, but certainly the first time it affected him so much. He shook his head at that, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s never him. It’s always just the water. No matter how the dream starts, there’s always water, and it comes for me, just like then, on the beach, and it- it wants me, and…” He cut off, panicked, and took a few deep breaths. “And there’s this man, always, just out of the corner of my eye, just there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I almost shuddered at those words. They rang too close home.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A bad guy?” I asked, like an idiot. Fortunately, Sunwoo didn’t mind. He just collapsed to his side, against me, putting his head on my arm. I was relieved to be able to embrace him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s a human, just, this creature. Always there in my dreams, always in the water. It wants me.” His voice was down to a whisper. “It calls me, he wants me closer, I can’t ever see him properly, but I know it’s not a monster, not a demon, just…” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay,” I tried to reassure, but he just shook his head again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I feel like I’m going crazy,” the shakiness in his voice made me think he might cry. I embraced him tighter. “I keep thinking that maybe I will see him in the water in real life too, you know?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The words felt like a punch to the gut. I knew. I knew far too well. “Like maybe if you look closely enough, there’s going to be someone there.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he was relieved at first, and then lifted his head in near panic. “You see it too?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I was conflicted about what to say, how to say it, how to phrase what’s happening. Sunwoo’s nightmares were messing with his head, but even without them, he was far too ready to believe in something sinister and evil and supernatural. I didn’t want to egg him on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet, I could hardly find an explanation for why I kept seeing something in the videos, something that’s not there, something that escapes me every time, something that Younghoon kept seeing too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” I started, and knew instantly I was sounding pathetic. With a sigh, I tried again. “When I look at Younghoon’s videos, at my videos, it feels like something’s there in the water.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo looked at me with big eyes, both sparkly and dull, both enraptured and hesitant. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I had to drop the pretense. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I keep seeing someone,” the confession felt heavy on my lips. “But no matter how many times I pause or clip, I can’t actually. Get any proof.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tears welled up in Sunwoo’s eyes. “It’s right there, but never enough, you can’t see the face, can’t see the details.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I wanted to disagree so desperately it pained me. Instead, I nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s almost like I can see a face.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sunwoo sniffled, but didn’t cry. He must have been holding himself back. He grabbed my arm before continuing, and I wondered if he knew that I needed that contact as much as he did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Changmin, I don’t think it’s normal,” he finally breathed out, tense, almost shivering. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every atom in my body wanted me to disagree. To find an explanation for everything, for the fogs, for the water, for the time passing so strangely, for the feeling that made me want to dig deeper into every single piece of evidence Younghoon left. To simply say a few words and justify the bone chilling feeling of being watched, followed, of having something just beyond my reach always stuck in my peripheral.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To make Sunwoo believe that it’s just weird vibes, weird dreams, weird coincidences.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Yet, I couldn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” I was forced to answer. Anything else would be a lie. “I don’t know what’s happening.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m so scared,” a single tear fell from Sunwoo’s eye, and I rushed to wipe it off. I felt useless. “I felt like it’s after me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No, no,” I tried, but Sunwoo cut me off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I think I messed up. I think we messed up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>My lips felt numb when I tried to answer the first time, and I had to try twice. “I think we’re doing the right thing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>To Sunwoo’s shaky fear, I could only offer my stone cold chill. Yet, as lost as I was in the face of whatever nightmare has made its way into our lives, I was certain of one thing. “We are the only people who care about Younghoon on this entire island. We are the only two people who are willing to look into it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I watched Sunwoo slowly remember why we started that entire mess in the first place. A fire was slowly being lit in his eyes, and even more slowly, it dried up his tears. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The people in this town don’t care that a man has disappeared, they don’t care that he saw something in the water, that we’re seeing something in the water.” The words were less heavy to say now that I’ve confessed once.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You think more people know?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to think. All I know is the police doesn't care, Younghoon’s family doesn’t care, everyone acts like he’s drowned, and yet they claim the water is safe.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was Sunwoo’s words, and he recalled them easily. When he pulled his face away from my grasp, it wasn’t because my touch was unwelcome, but because he didn’t need me to hold him so tenderly anymore. He wasn’t going to fall apart, at least not more than I was. Instead, he held my hands.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was like that, that we could do this. Hand in hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t stop, can we?” He looked me right in the eye, and I nodded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t stop now.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>I wanted Sunwoo to sleep well after spilling his heart to me, after getting all of his worries off his chest, but he didn’t. Reality was unkind, and I was woken up at night by Sunwoo’s tossing and turning in bed, and all I could do was gently shake him awake, pet his hair until he opened his eyes, blown wide, pupils shaking, and then hug him until he fell back asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was my turn to lose sleep then, and that was when most of my thinking happened. With Sunwoo pressed close, not caring about the tingling and static in my arm, I tried to put everything together. As the sun rose slowly, as it washed over the room, over Sunwoo’s relaxed features, over the stash of cassettes and newspapers, resolution swirled around and formed in my mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last of the puzzle pieces fell into the place when I grabbed a photograph from the top of the stash. The old one, with warped edges, yellowed. The one depicting the lighthouse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Having memorized the surroundings of the lighthouse thoroughly, now with just one glance I was able to tell that something was wrong with it. The lighthouse was a different color, sure, but it also looked wider, shorter, the proportions were all off. I could have almost chucked it up to the dimensions of the photo getting distorted, but something else was there, too, that solidified my suspicions as not groundless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I caught Sunwoo alone to show him the photograph, and compared it to a photo from my phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See how you can see this bit of the dock here? It should be obscured.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo nodded, and I wasn’t sure if he got what I’m pointing to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know it’s hard to see, with how grainy this photo is, but from this perspective, look. The island is right behind the lighthouse. From this perspective, you almost can’t see it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Sunwoo finally saw what I was getting at when I showed him a different angle of the rocky island. It almost made me nauseous, to look at it so attentively once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the dock is right here. In front of the island. I think,” what I was about to say sounded almost ridiculous, but it was the only thing that made sense. “I think the lighthouse was moved. It looks like it’s on the island, here, and now it’s on the shore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Surprisingly, Sunwoo didn’t question my sanity. I could have figured, considering the subject of our conversation just the night before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did it say anywhere on the internet that it was moved?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I shook my head. “It didn’t, but this picture, it’s definitive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo took my phone from me and scrolled through the pictures to compare them to the old photograph, and nodded to himself. “Yeah, no, you’re right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There are so many photographs taken on this beach, Sunwoo,” I realized I neglected to ever mention this fact to him when Sunwoo gave me a surprised look. “At least four of them, I went through the videos yesterday. And there’s so many photos. And this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a second, Sunwoo chewed on his bottom lip, and it got me worried. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought this up? Maybe we agreed to keep going, yes, but maybe this was too early? Then, Sunwoo looked back up at me, and through his dark circles, through his ashy skin, through the hazy whites of his eyes, I could see his determination.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do we go there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He already knew my answer. “We have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, Sunwoo contemplated again for a second before speaking up. “We should call the police again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His words floored me. “Sorry? And they’re gonna do what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know they don’t care,” Sunwoo placated me with a gentle stroke to my shoulder. “But they’re still the law reinforcement, and we need to obey the law.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As frustrating as that was, I knew it to be true, so I only rolled my eyes. “Fine,” I wasn’t happy about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, that’s just to protect our asses at this point,” Sunwoo was getting his phone out. “I don’t think they’re gonna be very happy about us calling them again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, like, right now?” I was a little taken aback, but then again, couldn’t find a reason to tell Sunwoo not to do that. “What are we even gonna tell them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That we know that Younghoon hung out around the lighthouse. That maybe they can look for- For a body there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The way Sunwoo hesitated was more than enough to tell me he didn’t believe that what would be found was actually a corpse. Still, that sort of explanation could possibly work on the cops, and I knew that was what Sunwoo was shooting for.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As sunwoo dialed the police station and put the phone on speaker, I closed the door. No one else needed to hear us get scolded by the officer, I thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man on the other side of the line gave his name and his rank, and asked what we needed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We think we might have some evidence regarding a missing person case,” Sunwoo started, and the officer’s groan interrupted him immediately. I realized we shouldn’t have called from Sunwoo’s number.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s you kids again? Listen. He’s dead. He’s gone. He’s officially declared dead. Stop looking for him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if we know where to find the body?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The officer laughed a bitter laugh. I hated the sound of it. “Then go pay for the funeral for all I care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He disconnected just like that, and I was floored.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t fucking believe,” I started, but Sunwoo sighed heavily instead of getting pissed. That threw me off my rhythm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I expected this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh? This?” I gestured vaguely at the phone. “Complete and utter dismissal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The people here don’t like outsiders,” Sunwoo lowered his gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I thought about that sentence again not even half an hour later, when Eric’s stepdad almost walked into us, walking into the house as we attempted to leave and go for the garden. It was a surprise, seeing him at all, considering how usually he was always either busy with his work in the harbor, out on the town with Eric’s mum, or busy cooped up somewhere in the house, doing what he called ‘paperwork’, despite the distinct lack of papers in his office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We need to talk,” He cut our polite greetings in half.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure,” Sunwoo answered, surprised, always the more accommodating and welcoming out of the two of us. “What seems to be the problem?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Care to explain why the police are calling me to tell me I have to take better care of my guests?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I felt a chill run through my entire body and root me to the floor. The one consequence I did not think about was the very realistic, very not supernatural perspective of getting our hands slapped for snooping around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh,” I started, but obviously there wasn’t anything I could say to save my face. I tried to cover up our tracks and minimize the damage, instead. “We were filming a few videos for our YouTube channel, but they got out of hand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? And what do you need to bother the police for, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For the views,” Sunwoo cut in, and I almost wanted to kiss him. Of course, he always knew how to think on the fly. “If we can put something like ‘we called the police’ in the video description, it gets many more views.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was bullshit, I knew it and Sunwoo knew it, but by the looks of it, Jeff did not know it. He furrowed his brows in the way that’s usually reserved for dealing with teenagers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sure you think your views are very important, but I’m going to ask you to stop doing that while you’re under my roof, alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop what?” I shouldn’t have asked, but I couldn’t help myself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop snooping,” Jeff didn’t seem to me like the kind of person who got angry easily, so to hear his voice start to raise worried me. “Stop poking your noses into island business.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, sir,” I wasn’t sincere at all when I said that, and Jeff could tell, but he couldn’t say much about that. “Sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just pick a different clickbait for your videos.” He moved his eyes to Sunwoo, who looked right about the same mix of annoyed and embarrassed as I felt. Surprisingly, as Jeff regarded him, his expression changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” He pointed to Sunwoo’s wrist. I realized Sunwoo didn’t have a bandaid, his pale, glistening blister easily visible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just burned myself,” Sunwoo covered his wrist immediately, but Jeff was already drilling his eyes into him anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? Long time ago?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” he a non-answer. “Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jeff’s silence went on for longer than would be considered normal. “Nothing.” He turned his eyes to me. “Keep to yourselves, alright? No snooping. No trespassing. Just don’t be a menace.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I could only assure him once again that I understood the message, just as passive-aggressively as the last time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>~ ~ ~ ~</span>
</p><p>
  <span>We barely had to exchange any words about this. I tapped Sunwoo on the arm when it was dark already, when Eric locked himself in his bedroom and Jeff in his office. I asked him if he was ready, and he asked me if I had a flashlight. I did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>We got into the car and I drove away without turning on the headlights. Maneuvering was hard, but I didn’t hit anything, and we really didn’t need to shine the light straight into Jeff’s windows to let him know we are very much still going to cause problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of us spoke up until we were as close to the lighthouse as we could get with the car. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I take the camera?” Sunwoo asked, ogling the filming stuff on the back seat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” I nodded. Our phones could film, too, but nothing beat a high definition recording after all. That, and we could use the extra light.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m filming everything this time,” I hissed through my teeth, going through my phone’s gallery and making some more space for a longer recording. Having my phone refuse to cooperate because of lack of memory space would be the last thing I needed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The hike to the lighthouse was short, yet, every step we took felt like it took several minutes instead of seconds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think that old dude is gonna be here?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I had to shake my head at that. “Probably not. But I don’t think we’d force much information out of him anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have to try,” Sunwoo countered. “Let’s come here tomorrow, we can just pretend we’re going to the town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right,” I agreed. It haunted me, mocked me, how much that strange man seemed to know. His warnings echoed in my ears, how we are young, how we shouldn’t snoop. How outsiders shouldn’t engage, how he directed those words at us, but at Eric, too, how the island was only safe to its natives, and how hostile they were towards everyone else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Our flashlights cut through the night easily, and despite there being no other source of light, we could see well. It only occurred to me then that the darkness meant the lighthouse wasn’t active, but that didn’t change much. It only meant less people would see our snooping. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before we even reached the coast, as soon as I could see the waves in the distance, not yet reached by the light of my torch, I turned on the recording, and so did Sunwoo. He calmly panned our surroundings, and my brain was already buzzing at the thought of getting to review the footage later. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As soon as we hit the coast, I was glad we started filming right away. Looking between my camera screen and the beach, I could tell something was wrong. Something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, something that I couldn’t shine the flashlight on, something unsettled me and I couldn’t find it, but maybe if I recorded everything, I thought, I could then rewatch the footage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Changmin?” Sunwoo’s voice stopped me before I figured out what unsettled me so. “Did you switch the memory card?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I grimaced, trying to remember if I messed with the camera at all, but I couldn’t remember anything. “No, why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It doesn’t want to record.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I approached Sunwoo and checked the camera’s display. Sure enough, the recording wasn’t going, and it wouldn’t start no matter how many times we pressed ‘record’ or ‘pause’.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Turn it off and on again,” I suggested, frustrated, as if Sunwoo wasn’t attempting it already. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am, I am,” Sunwoo took half a step back as he tried to press the tiny button with his cold, clumsy fingers, and he must have stepped on a seashell or a stick, because we heard a loud, crunching noise. It startled me, with the way it rang in the silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence. I listened for a second, then for a few more. I realized that we were standing in complete, utter silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sunwoo?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “Sunwoo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” He didn’t lift his attention from the camera at first, not until I grabbed his arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you hear the waves?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo’s pupils shook as he looked at me, realizing in terror that he, too, couldn’t see anything. Then, his eyes shifted from my face and he looked behind me, into the distance, and horror warped his features.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Changmin!” He pointed behind me with his empty hand. I’ve never turned around so fast in my life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The water was immobile, as if frozen in time, waves perfectly still, half risen, never falling down. I almost expected them to crash down when we finally noticed their behavior, but they didn’t, and the chill that ran down my spine almost made me drop my phone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck,” I swore, and lifted my phone immediately, to film the strange event. The screen was dark, though, completely blank, and no matter how many times I tapped the screen furiously, it wouldn’t light up. “Take a video! Record this!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t,” Sunwoo cried, and with the corner of my eye I saw him bang the camera with an open palm. “Oh god, oh god.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The waves mocked us, still as a picture, not moving an inch, no matter how far into the distance I looked, glistening at us in the light of my flashlight like icicles. Seconds were passing, but they didn’t rise, didn’t crash down, didn’t do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck,” Sunwoo gave up on trying to get the camera to work, and I pocketed my phone, too. When Sunwoo grabbed my arm, I realized his breathing is so heavy and quick, I can hear it. I wondered if he could hear mine, too, hear my frantic heartbeat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go,” I muttered, and Sunwoo’s grasp on me strengthened. “Let’s go closer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I expected Sunwoo to call me crazy, to panic. I did not expect him to choke out a sob, and a broken “yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There it was. The sea, in all of it’s terrifying glory, waves hardly reaching my waist, haunting me like a nightmare, one I couldn’t wake up from. It was just water, I thought, realistically, this amount shouldn’t drown me. It was just water, strange and foreign, but just water. The sea was safe, the old people of the island would say. I took a step forward, and so did Sunwoo, and the sea stayed exactly the same, not one pop of a foam bubble, not a splash, just deafening silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It hit me, just how overwhelmingly stupid it was of me to try and justify something like this. I allowed myself to let out a gasp of terror, an ugly, broken sound. It was all I could do in the face of something I could not comprehend, explain, control, in the face of something I spent all my life disbelieving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then I took one more step forward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I almost expected the sea to move, just like it did a few days ago, to run away from me or maybe to chase me, but it didn’t It stayed still, perfectly, hauntingly still, allowed me to walk up closer with Sunwoo at my arm, until we were so close we could almost wet our shoes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, the waves crashed, swirled down in a spiral towards us and I was ready to run away, just barely not quick enough on my feet to jump back, tumblick backwards, afraid to get splashed. But the waves hit the ground and instead of scattering forwards, reaching me, they pulled back once again, almost in a normal motion, but the move back didn’t stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It wasn’t parallel to the coast, even though it seemed to be so, at first. The receding was unpredictable, chaotic, it deepened until the bottom of the sea was exposed, until I could see the ground. Until I realized there’s quite a bit of the ground being shown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sea was literally parting in front of us, showing us a clear path, an almost perfectly dry walkway into the distance. If my assessment was correct, it was pointing us towards the rocky island.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I was breathless, afraid to move, too paralyzed to run at the waves like I did just seconds ago. Sunwoo wasn’t, though, and he let go of his grip on my shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have to go,” he said, and started walking into the distance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> I didn’t have a choice but to follow him. The crunching of the rocks moving under our feet was louder than the whisper of the sea. As we walked forwards, into between the parting waves, they soon went from barely reaching our knees to towering over our heads. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a monument, swaying gently, and I almost wanted to extend my hand and touch the water, make sure it’s wet, make sure it’s really there. I was afraid, though, afraid I would get pulled in or the water would strike down, drown us, bury us under its weight against the sea bed. Even the smallest touch could potentially enrage the force of nature, I thought, and trailed behind Sunwoo closely, avoiding each and every droplet of water instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, I saw the island in the darkness in front of us. It was only then that I realized I didn’t have my flashlight with me, having probably dropped it before. It hardly mattered, the light of the moon being enough to help me and Sunwoo reach the cold, wet rock, the rusty ladder bolted to the ground between two boulders, allowed us to climb up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you hear it?” Sunwoo asked me, not looking back, staring into the mass of rocks that was the only thing occupying the island.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hear what?” I asked. Was it about the sea waves? Their sound slowly filtered back into the air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I turned back to look at the sea, and instead of a pathway, I saw a perfectly normal surface. There was no trace of the parting in the water, no trace of how we got there, and the only way I knew it was there before was that my clothes weren’t wet at all, and had we swam across from the beach, we would both be drenched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A part of me wanted to break down and cry. The other part of me wanted to pretend nothing is out of the ordinary. Torn, I decided to seek out Sunwoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hear what?” I grabbed him by the arm. “Sunwoo, there’s…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, listen,” he pointed between the rocks. “There.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was when I heard it. The singing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was high pitched, yet dark, soft and yet cutting, and I could hear it so perfectly it almost seemed to be coming from inside of my head, not from the dark shape behind the rocks. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. It echoed, it cascaded over the water, and there were no words being sung, yet I knew what the voice was saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s the voice again,” I choked out, afraid to interrupt the singing, but feeling like if I don’t tell Sunwoo, I will explode. “It’s right there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How could I have ever forgotten about it? How could I have ever lived a single hour without recalling this voice, this hauntingly beautiful voice, how come I’ve heard it once before, with Sunwoo, too, and then just never thought about it, ever again?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the singing was to stop, I realized I would forget again. A chill ran down my spine, and I could no longer stand still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I thought I was the only one rushing forwards towards the rocks, but Sunwoo was right next to me in just a second, circling around the boulders, desperate to see beyond them, to see more of the dark shapes. We found a spot with a rock hanging low, just barely enough to crawl under it, and I didn’t even wait a second before sinking to my knees and getting into there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I could stand up once inside, and found myself surrounded half by tall, sharp boulders, half by knocked down walls, invisible from the outside of the circle. It didn’t matter, though, because there was a metal hatch in the floor, only half closed, and the singing was clearly coming from the inside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I threw a glance to Sunwoo just to make sure he’s not too far behind, and opened the hatch without hesitation. It gave in easily, despite being heavy, and banged backwards against the rocks when it slipped out of my hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The singing stopped at once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do,” Sunwoo lunged at me, grabbing fistfuls of my hoodie, furious, and I stumbled backwards, almost falling. The way I recoiled made Sunwoo open his eyes wider, blink in confusion, and then let go of my clothes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Singing,” I said, feeling the memory of the sound escape me already. “Singing. There’s a voice, singing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Sunwoo pressed his hands to his temples, no doubt in an effort to force his brain to stay with him. “The same voice, again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I breathed out with relief hearing that he remembered it, too, that we heard it just before we found the stash of Younghoon’s things. I couldn’t allow myself more than a second of this relief, though, and I immediately gathered myself, reminded myself of what we needed to do, looked down the hole that the hatch exposed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think we should follow it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do we have a choice?” Sunwoo refuted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>We didn’t. There was only one way for us to go, and it was down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like then, I would go first, I realized. Just like then, Sunwoo lit up the rusty ladder for me with the light of the camera he managed to not drop into the waves when we ran, though this time he didn’t manage to record anything, all of the buttons still unresponsive. Just like then, I descended into the darkness without any idea of what I might find inside, and lit up a torch handed to me by Sunwoo. Just like then, I lit up the ladder for him, as he slowly joined me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time, I was brimming with excitement, eager to discover, hungry for sensation. This time, dread sewed my lips shut and seeped like cold into my fingertips until they trembled. I wasn’t curious anymore. I was just burdened with the knowledge that I cannot turn around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When I cast my flashlight around, I found that we were standing in a wide hallway, with cement walls and halogen lights lining the ceiling, all turned off. The hallway branched two ways, both equally empty and uneventful, and opposite of the wall with the ladder leading up, there was a set of stairs leading down. The silence inside was deafening, every slosh of the waves outside echoing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There,” Sunwoo pointed towards the stairs with the camera’s light. He looked half-dead, the only light cast on his face coming from below him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you know?” I asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>I regretted, when I heard the answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s calling me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo’s eyes were blown wide with fear, glossy, his lips trembled. It was not comparable to the expression of fear he would put on when watching scary movies, when waking up from a nightmare, when confessing to me his deepest worries. It was something more haunting, because it was lined with acceptance. He looked like he gave up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grabbing his hand wouldn’t solve anything, I realized. Kissing his tears away wouldn’t help. The only thing I could do was go with him, go down that set of stairs, face whatever was on the other side. So we did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stairs weren’t wide enough for two people to go hand in hand. Sunwoo asked to go first, and I let him, following him closely, shining the light my torch down, between us, illuminating the way. It wasn’t a long descent. It couldn’t have taken more than thirty seconds. I knew, because I felt every single one of them roll by like the hull of a ship being hauled against the shallow of my back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a pale, green glow at the bottom of the staircase, swirling across the walls dreamily. Sunwoo walked into it all too eagerly and then stopped in his tracks, barely giving me the space to squeeze past him and regard the place that we found ourselves in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was half a basement, half a cave, half sunken in water, the cave extending further out into the distance, obviously connected to the sea with an underwater tunnel.The green glow was coming from somewhere under the water’s surface, casting strange shadows around the room. I hardly cared about any of those things, though, because the singing started again, and this time, I could tell perfectly where it was coming from.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A head full of pale white hair broke the surface of the water, and the singer emerged from underneath, the song never stopping, as if it didn’t matter to it if it’s mouth was full of water or not. Then, the creature kept rising, until I could regard it fully, until it was halfway perched on a conveniently placed rock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a humanoid creature, yet it was obviously not human. It had the face of a man, the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen, yet it’s skin was ashy, tinted teal even in the white light of my flashlight, and where the lower part of its body was still submerged, I could swear I saw scales.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I knew I should be terrified. Of the way the creature’s neck moved, like flaps opening, of the way when it extended a hand towards Sunwoo, it’s fingers were webbed. Of the way it’s eyes drilled holes into me, into Sunwoo, into anything it’s gaze met, bottomless, magnetizing, as captivating as the sea. I couldn’t, though, not when it was singing the most heavenly song on earth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It felt almost like I could understand the words, though there were none. It was just sounds, echoing against the cave’s walls, burrowing their way into my mind, but I could understand them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come here,” the creature demanded. Sunwoo moved closer to it. “Be with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sunwoo nodded, I saw him in my peripheral vision, unable to turn my eyes away from the creature in the water. He was extending his hand, too, so close to touching the creature, as drawn in as I was frozen to the spot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come,” the creature beckoned. Sunwoo moved a step closer. Their fingers almost touched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” I heard Sunwoo whisper back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come closer,” the high note rang so, so clear, so magnetic, and Sunwoo finally made the last step. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature grabbed him by the wrist, right over the blister, and Sunwoo screamed. I felt as if someone shattered glass in my brain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, the singing didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was Sunwoo’s pain, and how he was being pulled forward, towards the creature, into the void.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I grabbed the torch tighter in my hand and swung it with a shout, aiming at the creature’s hand, attempting to knock it away from Sunwoo. When I stepped into the water, I slipped on the slope and almost fell backwards, but miraculously, I held my ground, and swung the torch again for a good measure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, it hit the creature, and it stopped singing, the beautiful face twisting in pain and disgust, wincing at me. When it opened its mouth, I could see rows of sharp teeth, and then it screamed, or was it my scream? Was it Sunwoo’s scream?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The torch fell from my hand and as I tried to back away, I slipped.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” I screamed, and tried to kick. Somewhere behind me, Sunwoo was making a terrible noise, but I could hardly hear it over the sound of my heart beating a mile an hour. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature was close, too close, and I was more than sure it was gonna bite me. My shoes splashed against the slippery slope as I tried to pull myself back up, but I couldn’t find any support, I couldn’t grab anything, get a hold of anything, couldn’t push myself up. There was only the smooth concrete and the water, and the creature in front of me getting closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>My fingers encountered a rock, and immediately wrapped themselves around it. It was almost painful, the relief with which I knew what I needed to do. It was the type of violence that runs bone deep, passed from my ancestors to me with the same sequence of DNA that warns me from eating raw meat and wants shelter to sleep in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I lifted the rock above my head, and grabbed it tighter. With just one blow, I figured I could smash the creature’s skull open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” A voice yelled right into my ear, along with a flashing light almost blinding me. Just as I struck down, fingers got wrapped around my wrist and stopped my hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck!” I could hear myself screaming out. I slipped forwards again, but the vice grip on my wrist didn’t disappear, and my hand bent backwards, shooting bolts of pain into my shoulder. I couldn’t even comprehend what’s happening for a second, pain blinding my vision and the instinct of survival forcing me to kick back, crawl back until I was back on horizontal land.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only then I was able to finally open my eyes and look up to see a man standing over me, a hurricane lantern on the floor next to him, a panicked expression on his face. It was a face I’ve only seen a few times, but one I would never forget.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you crazy?” He yelled at me, but I didn’t care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Younghoon?” In my shock and pain I almost forgot about Sunwoo, but as I scooted away from the water, my back touched something warm, and I immediately remembered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I turned around to see Suwnoo on the floor, a pained expression on his face, limp and clearly unconscious, but with no bodily harm visible, otherwise. I leapt to my feet as well as I could with my shoulder twisted and out of use, and got closer to Sunwoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I placed a hand next to his mouth, and only exhaled in relief when I felt a tingle of breath against it. If he was breathing, he was going to be fine, and I could take care of myself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck,” I shouted again. Everything was happening too quickly. The creature in the water was now against a far wall of the cave, only it’s hair and eyes showing above the surface, and in front of me was Younghoon, still, in flesh, breathing, very much not dead. “What the fuck is going on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop screaming,” Younghoon told me in a calm tone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I took a second to soak in just how different he looked from the photos of him I’ve seen so many times. His eyes were always big and downturned, and he was always thin, almost lanky, but now, in the unsettling light, rather than charming and handsome his features seemed twisted, exaggerated, sunken in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was beyond me how he was trying to get me to calm down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck is this in the water,” I pointed with my good hand. “And why are you protecting it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He is a siren,” Younghoon gave me a look as if I was being impolite by misgendering a fucking sea monster. “And if you hurt him, the entire island is going to flood.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I just stood there in silence, trying to comprehend Younghoon’s words, but they were not filtering in. At the same time, I was ready to believe just about anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck do you mean? And what’s happened to Sunwoo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Younghoon shook his head and grabbed the lantern from the floor. He put it on a shelf on a wall that I didn’t even register before that very moment. “Your friend here will be fine. Well, mostly. But you need to say goodbye to him and go away. Quickly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I laughed at Younghoon, a dark, ugly laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you don’t explain to me what the fuck is happening right in this fucking second, I’ll make sure they really never find you.” It didn’t matter to me that we spent weeks trying to prove Younghoon wasn’t dead. I almost bashed someone’s skull in with a rock once, and I was ready to try that again, if it was for Sunwoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Younghoon sighed and shook his head again, but this time with less contempt and more pity. He moved closer towards the water, towards the siren still hiding in the water, and sat down at the edge of the very cement block I had slipped off of no more than half a minute ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In silence, I watched the siren get closer to him, I watched it rise from the water, first, and then rise together with the water, just like the water rose and stopped and then crashed down before on the beach. Then, when Younghoon extended his hand, the creature took it, pressed it to its neck, against the flaps that I realized had to be gills. It smiled, and as beautiful as its face was, the row of sharp, triangle teeth was still unsettling. I could see the creature’s tail where the layer of water was thinner. It was long, dark and snakelike, and winded in coils further down than I could see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s not evil,” Younghoon broke the silence. When he took his hand away from the creature, though, his palm looked gray, almost darker than the creature’s scales, and I couldn’t help but think he looked even more tired than before. “He helps the townsfolk. He keeps them safe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As I remembered the statue of the mermaid located right in the middle of the town square, as I remembered the legends of the safe waters, I almost wanted to laugh. Never in a million years I would have thought there was that much truth to it. Seeing how the siren bent water to it’s will, though, seeing what I’ve seen before, it was more than clear to me that the creature in front of me was capable of preventing any disaster.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But that requires power, and he can’t just pull the power from nowhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where does it get the power from?” I asked, looking back and forth between Younghoon and the creature in the water, who was now backing away from Younghoon, again, and instead floated towards Sunwoo. I instinctively stepped in between them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Younghoon didn’t answer. Instead, he looked down at his hand, and then at Sunwoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was then that I noticed how the skin on Youngoon’s left hand was more pale than on his right one, how it looked ashy and scaly, more so where he touched the siren. How the color and the texture reminded me of the blister on Sunwoo’s wrist. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no,” I muttered, and moved even further between Sunwoo and the water. “Oh no, no, no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He feeds off people.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well then he can feed off someone else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not everyone will do,” Youghoon was answering me calmly, quickly. I hated how used to the thought he was. “I don’t know exactly how that works but it has to be a guy, a young guy, with lots of life and energy. Like you. Like me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The creature didn’t seem to want to get closer to Sunwoo immediately, so I risked looking back at Youngohon. He looked dejected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck, man? You’re just gonna sit here and let this fucking thing, what suck the life out of you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Younghoon tsked at me. “It’s better than dying. Most people just fucking die, dude, they die when they get here. You don’t want to know how many corpses I got out of this cave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing was making sense anymore, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to just pull Sunwoo up and run away, up the stairs, up the ladder. With my shoulder on fire I could barely hold myself up, though, and I was forced to look at the fucking water, at Younghoon, and the hurricane lantern.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great job of fucking protecting the island, if it’s killng the inhabitants,” I spat out, and then realized just how ridiculous it is to be arguing over the morality of a choice a sea monster has to make.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You done?” Younghoon wasn’t looking amused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I wanted to say something more, about how it’s a shitty protection if people keep going missing, but a fact suddenly became very clear to me. “Then all those disappearances..?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” bitterness was clear in Younghoon’s voice. “One person a year to keep the entire island safe. A good trade if you ask me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But they all died, and you didn’t, right? Then why didn’t you just fucking run away?” I was baffled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? I haven’t even thought about this. Gee, thanks, running away will surely be a good idea,” Younghoon was being sarcastic, and it just felt like a punch to the stomach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What the fuck are you talking about? Your family, your friends, they all think that you’re dead, do you even know how much effort, how much-” I cut off as I realized just what I’m saying. My anger died down immediately, to be replaced by shock. “They all think that you’re dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Told you not to look for me, did they?” Younghoon wasn’t even surprised.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To comprehend this was almost more shocking, more vile than to realize that there is some strange monster controlling the waters around me. I swallowed heavily a few times before I was able to voice my realization out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They knew?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone on the island knows,” he gave me a sad smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And they just left you to get your life slowly sucked out of in this freaky cave?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Younghoon shrugged. “They thought I’m going to die, if that’s of any consolation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then why didn’t you die?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I put the pieces together after the night I got marked, and when no one took me seriously, I-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Marked?” I interrupted him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like this guy,” Younghoon pointed to Sunwoo’s arm. “Got lost at the beach in the fog, that was when he grabbed me. Only much later I realized I was kettled into that one particular beach.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was that what happened to Sunwoo? I couldn’t recall. He wanted to go to the beach by himself, sure, there was fog. Sure. But did he get trapped there? I tried to recall something more about the people, if I ran across anyone together with Eric, but couldn’t, not in my state. Younghoon took my silence as a sign to go on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“After that, I had a few weeks, so I did some snooping. Found some local legends. Saw some strange things and put the pieces together. I knew what’s going to happen to me. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t try to run away like the rest of the idiots.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Revelation washed over me once again. “That was what you were tracking with all of these videos?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hoped your friend would have put it together, too, and maybe not die” I hated the pitying smile Younghoon gave me, at least until he continued speaking. “I wasn’t sure if I’ll be alive to relay a message, and no one else on the island was going to do that for me, either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a second, I didn’t know what to say. The words died down in my throat, and I could only open and close my mouth like a fish out of water. Ironic, I thought. Younghoon took that as an invitation to speak, once again, and I couldn't blame him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not very possible to run from water, not on the island. There isn’t a single spot that can’t be reached. If I try to run, I’ll die, and the same goes for your buddy right here.” He sighed. “You can go, though. You’re free to leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I wanted to scream that he’s mistaken, that for sure there is a way to run away, for Sunwoo to be safe. Then I remembered I am within two meters form a water-manipulating, man-eating monster, stuck in a cave with water all around me, on a small island next to a bigger island, with miles and miles of water separating me from solid ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Younghoon’s words were true, Sunwoo was really stuck down here. The very thought of leaving him alone terrified me, though, and it made me want to pull at my hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How could I ever just run away and abandon him to wither in some underground bunker? Was there anything else for me to do, other than just living on the island and sneaking out at night to make sure Sunwoo is safe? I would even take being the prime suspect in the case of Sunwoo’s disappearance, I thought, and swallowed back a sob.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was cruel. It was twisted. It was the most ridiculous terror I’ve ever had to face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But why you?” I wanted to cry. “Why Sunwoo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ll always rather sacrifice a stranger over one of their own. My mum’s parents aren’t from around here. Lots of my cousins work on ships. I was the right age. That was reason enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I felt the impact of his words almost like a physical punch. It was a terrible scenario, but one that worked too well, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. The police’s disregard, the way everyone talked about the safe water, about the island community, the way no one cared about a mysterious missing person case. The way the people looked at me and Sunwoo, and at Eric.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eric,” I said out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s Eric?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My friend,” I felt tears welling up in my eyes. “My friend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even with Sunwoo stuck here, even with Youngohon presumed dead forever, I felt like there was something for me to do. It was a freaky nightmare, the cave, the green light, the slowly swirling water. Yet, it was something I could fight against, and while I felt terrified, overwhelmed, desperate, I didn’t feel powerless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The realization, though, that Eric will be next, sucked all of the power out of me.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He just moved in here with his mum, with his stepdad, he works in the harbor,” I felt a tear make its way out of my ear and down my cheek. I wiped it hastily. “He’s just two years younger than me. The people around here, they don’t like him very much. I’m not from here, I could just leave, but he has to live here for a bit longer before he goes to college, he’s young, he’s handsome, he’s-” I choked on my words and slumped down onto the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Younghoon looked at me with understanding in his eyes. “You can warn him as best as you can before you run away. Maybe the police won’t get you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tears burned my face as they fell. Slowly, resolve churned in my gut, flipping me inside out, flipping my world upside down. There was only one path, I realized, the path down, and I was down it from the moment we started asking about the mermaids.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The curiosity killed the cat, the saying went, and it felt like something my grandfather would tell me in this situation. That we asked for it. That we brought this upon ourselves. That Sunwoo did, at least, and that I could still yet be fine, if I just ran.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, now, the police would try to get me, frame me for Sunwoo’s murder, probably, anything to keep me quiet. My chances at escaping and being safe would have been bigger had I not been so curious. After all, there were many warnings, many signs. They all made so much sense now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe if I listened to the warnings I wouldn’t be there, in the cave, I would be safely at home. Sunwoo would find his way to follow the siren’s song by himself, and I would be none the wiser. Maybe I’d work the mystery out later, years later, when it was too late to save anyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I still thought I was better off the way I was, right next to Sunwoo. Maybe Sunwoo’s safety was beyond my control, but Eric’s wasn’t.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I got up and walked towards the edge of the water. The siren swirled around, lifting his lithe, pale body, using water to prop himself up, almost as if he was meeting me halfway, almost as if he was reading my mind. Watching the water rise and twist and bend itself to his power barely phased me anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One a year?” I asked the monster, as if he could answer me back. I wasn’t even sure if he could understand anything. He just looked me right back in the eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Youghoon answered, instead. “What do you want to do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>I extended my good hand forwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will I be good enough?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re fucking kidding me,” Younghoon said from the side, but I ignored him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, I was happy that Sunwoo had passed out. He would probably yell at me, ask me to stop. He would probably know exactly what I was thinking about even before I did it, he’d tell me to not even think about it. To run away. To be safe. He wouldn’t understand that I’d rather waste away with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The siren extended its arm and grabbed my extended hand, webbed fingers wrapping around my palm almost clumsily, climbing up, claiming. Where he had pressed his thumb into my wrist, a familiar, pale, ashy blister formed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Three more semesters, Eric said. And then he’s gone to Seoul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For his own sake, I hoped he would keep that promise.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Chanhee is the siren. I hope no one is surprised. If you stayed with me on this weird, wild ride, all I can say is thank you, and I hope you liked it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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